For decades, a woman now 59 years old received a succession of incorrect diagnoses. When her breathing difficulties worsened, she consulted a pulmonology department for a suspected lesion in the bronchi of the right lower lobe.
The patient had suffered repeated severe pneumonia, leading to lung damage and numerous hospitalizations. According to the scientific journal “Case Reports in Pulmonology”, x-rays taken over eight years regularly showed opacities and partial collapse of the right lung. However, his symptoms had been attributed to his former smoking and possible chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
A Barbie dinner toy
“During the eight months preceding our examination, the patient had already undergone five antibiotic treatments,” indicate the doctors. Faced with the seriousness of the situation, they requested a chest CT scan, which revealed several abnormalities in the bronchi and lungs. A lung tumor being considered, the patient was referred to a pulmonologist.
She then remembered having inhaled, at the age of eight, a small plastic cup from a Barbie playhouse. The first respiratory problems appeared shortly after. She had told this episode to doctors during her childhood, then several times as an adult.
But this lead had never been explored further: no foreign body was visible on the x-rays. The small cup, transparent to X-rays, remained invisible. The doctors then assumed, wrongly, that she had expelled it by coughing.
Foreign body removed after age 51
The specialist nevertheless performed a bronchoscopy, an examination which allows the inside of the trachea and bronchi to be observed using a fine camera. He discovered a foreign body completely obstructing the RB9 and RB10 bronchi: it was indeed the Barbie cup inhaled 51 years earlier.
The toy was successfully removed by surgery. Six weeks after the operation, the patient no longer had persistent respiratory discomfort.
According to “Case Reports in Pulmonology”, this is the oldest documented case in the medical literature of a foreign body remaining in the respiratory tract. Doctors believe the conical shape of the small cup allowed it to go deep into the bronchi, likely avoiding more serious complications that would have led to an earlier diagnosis.
