A 17-year-old boy went in for dental imaging to plan orthodontic treatment and came away with an unexpected diagnosis: a metal snap button, about 1 centimeter across, had been sitting inside his nose for more than 10 years. He had no nasal symptoms at all.
Ear, nose and throat specialists at Ad Diriyah Hospital and King Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, described the case in a report published in March 2025 in the International Journal of Surgery Case Reports. The paper's title calls it a "decades-long journey," but the timeline in the case itself spans roughly one decade, from age 7 to 17.
