Toy in the lung for decades

A Playmobil traffic cone remained in the lung of a British man for forty years before being discovered in 2017. Doctors initially suspected a tumor but later removed the toy, which had been inhaled when the man was seven, via bronchoscopy.

Medical report details the case

The case was described by doctors Nicholas Denny and Mohammed Munavvar from the Royal Preston hospital in September 2017 in BMJ Case Reports. They detailed the case of a 47-year-old British mailman whose X-ray suggested a bronchial tumor. No foreign body had ever remained so long in the respiratory tract without being suspected.

Symptoms led to misdiagnosis

The right lung of this man had not caused him any problems before he turned 46. A productive cough and yellow sputum then developed. The practitioners therefore treated a pneumonia with antibiotics, without lasting results. The chest X-ray then showed a mass in the lower lobe and a loss of lung volume. In this former daily smoker of a pack for thirty years, bronchial carcinoma was the leading hypothesis.

Procedure revealed the toy

However, the flexible bronchoscopy overturned this diagnosis in a few minutes. The pulmonologists saw a yellowish object partially obstructing the lower lobar bronchus and then grasped it with biopsy forceps. The object measured barely a centimeter. It was a miniature traffic cone from a Playmobil set, given to the patient for his seventh birthday.