Foreign Body

Amy is a lovely girl.  She gets earrings at the age of 9.  The right ear gets infection for six months (Fig.1,2 black arrow).  A small piece of earring (#1 in Fig.3) is removed from the earring opening (black arrow in Fig.1,2) following local anesthesia.  The infection is expected to clear once the foreign body is removed.

However, the infection persists for another six months.  X-ray examination shows that there appear to have two more foreign bodies (#2,3 in Fig.4).  The ear lobe is turned forward (as shown by white arrow in Fig.2).  An incision is made in the back surface of the ear lobe (Fig.5).  The incision has to be made because the wound closes after the first foreign body is removed.  It takes a lot of effort and long time to remove the other two foreign bodies (#2,3 in Fig.6).  If there is no more foreign body in her ear, the infection will be gone for sure. 

Earrings can be trapped in the ear to become foreign bodies.  It causes persistent infection.  Foreign bodies are difficult to remove.  Be careful before and after placing earrings.

Xin Wei, DDS, PhD, MS 1st edition 01/04/2014, last revision 01/04/2014