Case of accidental condom inhalation
This article describes the case of a 27-year-old female, school teacher with non-resolving symptoms of tuberculosis which were caused by an accidental condom inhalation. The patient presented to the emergency with a 6-month history of persistent cough, sputum and fever. However, despite treatment with anti-tuberculosis medications and antibiotics trials for 4 months, the patient’s symptoms did not improve.
Doctors advised testing the patient’s sputum for tuberculosis, the results of which were negative. Although, when doctors scanned her chest, a lesion was visible in the upper right lobe of the lungs. Further investigation showed that the lesion was “an inverted bag-like structure ‘sitting’ in the bronchus”. For further evaluation, doctors advised a chest radiograph which showed non-homogenous collapse-consolidation in the right upper lobe. Video bronchoscopy confirmed the presence of the bag-like structure in the upper lobe bronchus.
Although most of the “bag-like structure” got destroyed while retrieving, doctors identified it as a condom.
Doctors removed the condom using a biopsy forcep, which confirmed the presence of a condom. A detailed history confirmed that the condom was accidentally inhaled during fellatio. After the condom was retrieved from the patient’s lungs, doctors investigated further to find out how the condom actually got there. According to the report, “Retrospectively, both the husband and wife accepted to having undergone a fellatio. They could recollect that the condom had loosened during the act, and at that time, the lady had also experienced an episode of sneezing or coughing.”
Doctors suspected that the diagnosis could have been delayed because of several factors. Including the fact that the patient may have been hesitant to disclose what had happened or did not correlate the accidental inhalation with developing a cough. Doctors are also unlikely to consider inhalation of a foreign body considering the age of the patient.
Although a few pieces of the condom were still left in the lung because of it tearing while retrieving, the patient was expected to make a full recovery. According to the team, the case may be one of a kind in medical literature.
References
Accidental condom inhalation https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14870871/
