A stitch in time

unrecognized retained foreign bodies after a needlefish injury

Lau, Colleen L.
Sweet, Mark
Weinstein, Philip

¹Travel Medicine Alliance Clinics, Australia
²Department of Global Health, Research School of Population Health, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
³School of Biological Sciences, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia

† These authors contributed equally to this work.

Conference presentation: The article was presented as a poster at the 2015 Travel Medicine Alliance Annual Meeting, held in Brisbane, Australia.

To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: [email protected]

Received October 29, 2016

Received in revised form November 22, 2016

Accepted November 25, 2016

Journal of Travel Medicine 24(2), March 2017. | DOI: 10.1093/jtm/taw092

We present a case report of a traveller injured by a needlefish in the Caribbean. The needlefish leapt from the ocean and struck the traveller’s face at high speed, causing a seemingly superficial puncture wound on his nose. Later, it became apparent that multiple fish bones had broken off and lodged in his nasal cavity, very narrowly missing his cribriform plate. Some bones were discharged spontaneously through his nose over the next 3 months, and one required surgical removal. Our report highlights the importance of urgent radiological examination in patients injured by needlefish, even if the external wound appears insignificant.