Doctors remove a 'foul-smelling' nasal stone from 15-year-old girl's nose that had been slowly growing for around a decade

April 17, 2019  09:36

A teenage girl had a 'foul-smelling' nasal stone removed from inside her nose that had been slowly growing for a decade.

Doctors revealed the girl, who has not been named, had been suffering from nasal discharge and bleeding for many years.

After X-rays and CT scans, it was eventually discovered that there was a strange webbed shape within her sinuses.

Inside her nose doctors found what is medically called a rhinolith, which slowly develops when deposits build up over a foreign object.

In the 15-year-old's case, a piece of mucus-covered rubber around 2cm-long was retrieved.

It had most likely got stuck in her nose as a child, the doctors in the United Arab Emirates said. However, the girl didn't have any recollection of putting it there.

Rhinoliths are rare, accounting for one in 10,000 patients who are treated at an ear, nose and throat unit, figures suggest.

The strange growth can often go misdiagnosed, the doctors, led by Dr Mohiyuddin Ali at Ain Alkhaleej Hospital, said in BMJ Case Reports.

The girl had no other symptoms of a rhinolith, such as headaches, but had been given antibiotics many times.

CT scans showed 'clearly quite a large, irregularly shaped object with lots of spicules and wings', which the doctors described as a 'staghorn'.

The next step was to remove the stone, which was large enough to require general anaesthetic.

Unsurprisingly, the girl felt better immediately after the surgery, and within three weeks, after using antibiotics and saline spray, she had no symptoms at all.

A rhinolith is 'not a foreign body per se as it is not introduced from outside but it develops inside the nasal cavity,' the authors wrote.

It can be caused by an object, such as fruit seeds, plant material, beads, cotton wool or a bit of paper, or an external object, such as bone fragment.

Deposits of calcium and magnesium salts, as well as nasal mucus, cover the piece of material over many years.

Source: The Daily Mail

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