Abstract
The patient was a male worker o f 17 who had been accidently injured in the preauricular part of the left ear by an air gun shot. He visited our clinic after about 4 hours, complaining of slight swelling and pain in the wounded part. X-ray examination (circus tomograph) showed a complete air gun bullet, firmly fixed in the Fossa pterygopalatina (Fig. 1).
A week later, under local anesthesia (1% procain sol.), Caldwell-Luc radical operation and the trepanation of the posterior bony wall of the maxillary sinus were performed. The bullet buried in M. pterygoideus medialis was. successfully removed after exploring by use of 2 fragments of fuse as the marks in X-ray reexamination (Fig. 2).
Fifty-three cases of foreign body (bullet) have been reported in the otorhinolaryngeal circle in Japan in the past 30 years, except the wounded cases in battle.
