Man’s lung cancer discovered to be toy traffic cone swallowed during childhood

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A man thought to have lung cancer was discovered to have something much less malignant: a small toy swallowed when he was seven.

The 47-year-old patient had been suffering from a cough for more than a year, and was found to have a mass in his lung, according to BBC, which cites a report in the British Medical Journal.

The mass was thought to be a cancerous tumor, considering that the Englishman was a smoker.

However, after a bronchoscopy—a procedure that looks into the lung’s airways—doctors found a small toy traffic cone stuck in his airways.

The patient recalled receiving a Playmobil car set on his seventh birthday and swallowing a few pieces. According to the report, this case is unique since the symptoms only occurred later on in life.

He was since diagnosed with tracheobronchial foreign body (TFB) aspiration. Through a biopsy, doctors were able to remove the plastic toy cone that had remained in his body for 40 years.

The man’s cough has “almost entirely settled” after a follow-up four months later. Niña V. Guno/JB

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