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Friday, November 28, 2025

What is the strangest thing a surgeon has found inside someone while performing a surgery?

surgeon

Medical professionals, including surgeons, occasionally encounter unusual or unexpected items inside patients during surgeries. While these instances are relatively rare, here are a couple of unusual cases:

  1. Objects Left Inside the Body:

    • One relatively common occurrence involves surgical tools or other objects accidentally left inside a patient's body after surgery. This is known as a "retained surgical instrument" or "retained foreign object." It can include items like sponges, clamps, or even small instruments. Although it may not be the strangest finding, it is considered a serious medical error and can lead to complications, requiring additional surgery to remove the foreign object.
  2. Live Worm in the Eye:

    • In a particularly unusual case reported in a medical journal, surgeons discovered a live worm in the eye of a woman during a cataract surgery. The worm, known as a nematode, was removed, and the patient was treated for parasitic infection. Such cases are extremely rare and often associated with travel to regions where parasitic infections are more prevalent.

While instances of surgeons finding unusual items inside patients are relatively rare, there have been a few notable cases reported in medical literature. Here are a few more examples:

  1. Vegetable Sprouting in the Lung:

    • In a rare and unusual case, doctors in Massachusetts reported finding a pea plant growing in the lung of a man. The patient had inhaled a pea, and it sprouted and began to grow inside his lung. The plant was successfully removed during surgery.
  2. Fetus in Fetu:

    • Fetus in fetu is an extremely rare condition where a malformed, parasitic twin is found inside the body of its sibling. In some cases, these masses can contain partially formed structures resembling organs. There have been documented cases where surgeons discovered these formations during abdominal surgeries.
  3. Tooth in the Nose:

    • Occasionally, surgeons may find unusual objects lodged in the nasal cavity. One case involved a man who complained of chronic nasal discharge and had a bad smell. During surgery, doctors discovered a tooth that had somehow migrated from the man's mouth to his nasal cavity.
  4. Dentures in the Esophagus:

    • In a case reported in England, surgeons discovered a set of dentures lodged in a patient's esophagus. The patient had accidentally swallowed the dentures during surgery to remove a benign lump in the abdominal wall.
  5. Fish Bone in the Esophagus:

    • Accidental ingestion of foreign bodies is not uncommon, but some cases can be unusual. Surgeons have reported finding fish bones lodged in various parts of the digestive tract after being accidentally ingested with food.

It's important to emphasize that these cases are extraordinary and not representative of typical surgical experiences. Surgeons and medical teams take numerous precautions to prevent complications and ensure patient safety during surgeries. Unusual findings are often thoroughly documented for educational purposes and to contribute to medical knowledge and research.

Source: Some or all of the content was generated using an AI language model

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