Doctors find toothbrush inside 64-year-old's stomach 52 years after he swallowed it

The brush had remained safely lodged in a crook of his intestine, barely moving for over five decades. (Representational image: Unsplash)

A 64-year-old Chinese man who consulted doctors over a strange sensation in the stomach was shocked to find that it was caused by a toothbrush that he had swallowed as a child 52 years ago. The man, identified as Yang, said he recalled swallowing the toothbrush when he was 12. Doctors recently found it lodged in his intestines, South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported.

Yag told the publication that as a child, he was too frightened to tell his parents about what had happened and hoped that the toothbrush would simply dissolve on its own. Remarkably, he hadn't experienced any noticeable discomfort until very recently.

Upon examining his digestive system, doctors located the rogue toothbrush, a considerable 17-cm in length, stuck fast in his small intestine. They performed endoscopic surgery, managing to extract the object in just 80 minutes. This remarkable feat marked one of the longest items the hospital had removed from a patient’s digestive system in the last three years, SCMP reported.

A doctor highlighted the inherent dangers of swallowing a foreign object that big. Under normal circumstances, it could rotate, press against, and even puncture internal tissue, leading to a potentially fatal intestinal perforation. Yang's survival was incredibly fortunate, as the brush had remained safely lodged in a crook of his intestine, barely moving for over five decades, the doctor said.

Meanwhile, the story went viral on social media, and most users seemed shocked by it. “How lucky is he to survive with a toothbrush in his body for five decades? How could he think it would dissolve by itself? How did he manage to swallow that toothbrush?” SCMP quoted one user as saying.  Another empathised with Yang's childhood fear, commenting, “Naughty things like this, especially from half a century ago, might really end up with the kid being beaten harshly by their parents.”