Man with Sore Nipple Shocked to Learn He Had Knife Blade in His Chest for 8 Years

A Tanzanian man who came to the hospital complaining of pain and pus discharge from his right nipple was shocked to learn that he had been living with a large knife blade lodged in his chest for eight years.

Doctors at the Muhimbili National Hospital in Tanzania recently published a most unusual case study in the scientific journal National Library of Medicine. They wrote about a 44-year-old generally healthy man who came to the hospital with a 10-day-long history of white pus discharge from his right nipple. He denied any chest pain, difficulty breathing, cough, or fever, but asked if he had anything notable to tell doctors, he recalled a violent altercation eight years prior, during which he had sustained several cuts to his face, back, chest, and abdomen. Doctors had managed to suture the wounds back then, and he had lived a mostly uneventful life ever since, up until his nipple started oozing pus. Unable to determine the cause of the infection, doctors ordered an X-ray exam and were shocked to see a giant knife blade lodged in the man’s chest.

Photo: National Library of Medicine

“Initial imaging with a lateral chest radiograph demonstrated a retained metallic object in the mid-thorax, with surrounding opacification likely representing a resolving or chronic loculated hematoma or post-traumatic fibrosis, a sequela of the patient’s stab wound,” doctors wrote in their case study.

Somehow, the knife blade, which had entered through the right scapula, miraculously managed to dodge any major organs. At the time of the man’s altercation, eight years ago, the hospital he was treated at had no means of conducting a radiological investigation, and because he reported no pain after his wounds healed, no one bothered investigating further. Even more bizarre is that the knife caused the 44-year-old patient no discomfort for so long. The pus was a result of the dead tissue that built up around the foreign object.

Photo: National Library of Medicine

Following the shocking discovery, the knife was carefully extracted during surgery along with the dead tissue and the pus. The patient spent 24 hours in the ICU before being transferred to the general ward for another 10 days. His recovery went well, and subsequent follow-ups were uneventful.

Interestingly, this is not the first time we have reported about someone who lived with a knife in their chest without knowing about it for years. On the other hand, some people don’t notice chopsticks lodged in their eyeballs, so…