5 amazing medical X-rays

Here's a look at five amazing images in medicine.

1. This X-ray shows 28-year-old Las Vegas man Andrew Linn, who survived a 2010 car accident that pushed a 2-inch-thick metal fence pole through his mouth and out through the back of his neck, according to a report of his case in the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Linn "was very calm and didn't appear in any pain," surgeon Dr. Jay Coates, of University Medical Center, told the Review-Journal. The medical team at was able to remove the pole without damaging either of two major blood vessels — the carotid artery and jugular vein — in the neck region.

2. An 8-year-old boy in Australia had high levels of lead, a toxic metal, in his blood for more than two years. No one knew why, until doctors found 57 lead pellets trapped in his appendix.

The boy had been showing unusually hyperactive behavior for months, which prompted the doctors to check for lead poisoning. The tests revealed the boy had about five times the highest lead levels normally found in humans. But the source of the poisonous chemical remained unknown until the boy developed a stomachache and doctors X-rayed his abdomen.

"It's one of those things you only see once in a lifetime," Dr. Ibrahim Zardawi, the pathologist who examined the appendix, told LiveScience. "I've been in medicine for almost 40 years now, and had never seen anything like this."

Later, the boy and his siblings told the doctors that they had been eating the pellets they found in the geese that their family regularly hunted.

The case was reported in the Aug. 8 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. 

3. This X-ray was taken of an intoxicated 35-year-old man who went to an emergency room in Mexico with rectal bleeding and abdominal pain.

Doctors examined his abdomen and found a mass, but no signs of trauma. A rectal exam revealed a foreign body that could not be seen, so once the patient was well enough, he was sent to be X-rayed, according to Dr. Roberto Flores-Suarez and Dr.Jorge Reyes-del Valle, of the State Health Institute of Mexico, who reported the man's case in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2010.

The bottle was removed in surgery, and the man was treated with antibiotics and pain relievers. He eventually recovered.

4. A 57-year-old woman in Italy who went to the doctor with inflamed sinuses and facial pain had an unusual diagnosis: a dental implant in the sinus.

The woman had undergone oral surgery about two years before to place an implant — a 2-centimeter long (0.79 inch) metal screw designed to hold in place a replacement for a missing tooth — in her upper jaw. But surprisingly, an inspection of her mouth revealed the implant was not there. A CT scan showed the implant to be in her sinus cavity, next to her left eye. The researchers performed surgery to remove the dental implant, after which the woman's sinus symptoms went away.

It's possible that the implant did not properly integrate into the woman's jawbone, causing it to migrate into the sinus soon after the procedure, experts say.

5. This X-ray shows a knife that became stuck in a 30-year-old woman's esophagus and stomach, causing her "chest discomfort," according to a report of her case.

The woman had previously had the eating disorder bulimia, and had inserted the knife into the back of her mouth in order to demonstrate that she had lost her gag reflex. But she laughed unexpectedly, and the knife fell into her body, according to Dr. Aida Venado and Dr. Sarah Prebil, of Emory University School of Medicine, who reported the woman's case in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2012.

Doctors were able to remove the knife in a procedure called an esophagogastroduodenoscopy, in which a small camera is used to view the esophagus. The woman recovered, and she was able to eat without complications, according to the report.

Follow NEWS.am Medicine on Facebook and Twitter