A 34-year-old mentally retarded male patient, who was reported to have swallowed a stone and a marble ball three days ago, was admitted to our clinic. The chest computed tomography scan revealed hyperdense foreign bodies in the middle part of the esophagus. One of them was approximately 43x47 mm in size with an irregular edge, and the other one was triangular-shaped and approximately 17x16 mm in size, round-shaped, and smooth-edged (Figure 1a, b). On the same day, the patient was taken to the operating room and emergency endoscopy was performed. Endoscopy revealed a stone and a marble ball in the middle part of the esophagus (Figure 1c). The hard-to-hold marble ball was removed by rigid esophagoscopy. However, the stone could not be removed from the esophagus endoscopically. Therefore, the patient underwent a right posterolateral thoracotomy in the same session. Stone was removed by right thoracotomy and esophagotomy (Figure 1d). The esophagus primary was repaired and closed. The patient was discharged on postoperative Day 10 without complications.

Figure 1. Thoracic computed tomography (a) coronal and (b) sagittal sections showing radiopacity due to foreign bodies in the middle part of the esophagus. (c) Endoscopic appearance of the stone and ball in the esophagus and (d) foreign bodies after the procedure are seen.

In conclusion, esophageal foreign bodies are an important clinical condition encountered in all age groups. According to the type of esophageal foreign bodies, they can cause life-threatening complications and be the type of bodies that can be difficult to remove.[1-4] In such cases, the foreign body must be removed by open surgery.

Patient Consent for Publication: A written informed consent was obtained from patient.

Data Sharing Statement: The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Author Contributions: Concept: Y.A.; Design, data collection and/or processing: Y.A., A.B.U.; Supervision: A.E.; Resources, materials, analysis and/or interpretation, writing manuscript: Y.A., A.B.U., A.E.; Literature search, critical review: Y.A., A.E.

Conflict of Interest: The authors declared no conflicts of interest with respect to the authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding: The authors received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article.

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