Foreign-Body Aspiration Presenting as Recurrent Pneumonia: A Case Report

We report a patient who unknowingly aspirated denture material in association with a motorcycle accident in 1974. After a number of hospital admissions over 10 years for recurrent right-lower-lobe pneumonia, in 1984 he underwent rigid bronchoscopy that revealed the foreign body. The radiolucent nature of the denture material may have accounted for several earlier failures to detect it. Recurrent pneumonia in the same lung segment, especially in a younger person without underlying disease, should arouse suspicion of foreign-body aspiration.