Kochi: A nose stud may be a small and elegant accessory, but if it slips into the lungs, it can lead to serious medical complications.

In the past two weeks alone, the Interventional Pulmonology department at Amrita Hospital has removed nose-stud nails from the lungs of three women. Remarkably, none of them realised the ornament had entered their airway.

The metal fragments were discovered during routine health checks conducted before overseas travel. In one case, doctors found the nail of a missing nose stud lodged in the lower right lobe of a 31-year-old woman’s lung — almost two years after the jewellery had disappeared.

In another case, a 44-year-old woman was found to have a silver nose-stud nail in her lungs, which had disappeared six months earlier. A 52-year-old woman was also diagnosed with a nail inside her lungs during an X-ray taken as part of a health check. Her nose stud had gone missing two years ago.

All three women had only mild, occasional coughing and no serious symptoms.

A team led by Dr Tinku Joseph, Head of the Interventional Pulmonology Department at the hospital, removed the nails using bronchoscopy by guiding thin tubes into the lungs and extracting the objects . The procedures took about an hour each.

According to Tinku, small metal parts of nose studs can accidentally slip into the lungs, especially during sleep. If such objects cannot be removed through bronchoscopy, a portion of the lung may sometimes need to be surgically removed.