Mumbai News

Mumbai: 36 years after car accident, glass particles found in man’s swollen cheek – Times of India

MUMBAI: City doctors have discovered tiny glass particles lodged in a 56-year-old man’s face that were traced to a car accident he was in 36 years ago. It is extremely unusual for foreign objects to remain lodged inside a body for that long, said experts.
For months, R C Subramanian saw a hard swelling on his face grow that no antibiotics or steroids seemed to be able to treat. As the swelling just below the eye got bigger, he began to suspect the painless growth could be malignant. On approaching Bhatia Hospital, doctors advised him to undergo an ultrasound scan and a biopsy where they found the unimaginable.
Subramanian had extremely tiny glass pieces lodged on his face from a car accident he met with on April 4, 1984. He was in the backseat of an Ambassador car travelling to his hometown in Tamil Nadu when a bus hit them. He recalls being thrown out of the car covered in shattered glass particles. “I didn’t have any problems all these years. This October, I suddenly had this swelling on the face that did not respond to any medicines,” said Subramanian, an employee in a shipping company.
Doctors called it a rare case where a foreign object took as long as 36 years to manifest. “A wound doesn’t heal if there is a foreign object inside. Even if it does, it starts manifesting in some form, say, pain or a swelling within six months to a year or two,” said Dr Divya Prabhat, ENT surgeon at Bhatia Hospital, who operated on Subramanian earlier this month. Dr Prabhat said the case was intriguing as he and his colleagues couldn’t decipher the cause of the swelling. He was also referred to a skin specialist when a decision to carry out the biopsy was taken. The biopsy report stated it was a ‘foreign object granuloma’ or a tissue reaction for retained foreign bodies. “We performed a surgery and cleared the growth,” said Dr Prabhat.

Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/mumbai-36-years-after-car-accident-glass-particles-found-in-mans-swollen-cheek/articleshow/79732543.cms