An Interesting Journey of an Endobronchial Foreign Body - A Case Report

Reported incidence of spontaneous expulsion of chronically impacted foreign body from a segmental bronchiole is very less. We report a rare and fascinating journey of an iron nail which was accidentally inhaled two years back and was there in the right lateral basal segmental bronchiole. During bronchoscopy with severe bout of cough, the foreign body was expelled out through the bronchus and it was found to lie at unusual location i.e. in the rectum In most of the reported cases of foreign body inhalation and their expulsion, the foreign bodies were in right or left main bronchus, however in our case it is in the segmental bronchiole. Duration of the history in our case is two years, however duration in most of the reported cases is maximum of 11 months, and this makes our case exceptional. Route of expulsion of foreign body in our case is per rectal which is not mentioned in the literature. Imaging played a vital role in our case to locate the impacted as well as expelled endo-bronchial foreign body.