There are a few cases of foreign body in the tongue among patients presenting with the chief complaint of tongue pain. Lingual abscess caused by foreign body impaction is extremely rare. Herein, we report a case of lingual abscess in a 69-year-old man, which necessitated emergency surgery. He visited the hospital about a month after sustaining an injury of the tongue. He had an abscess at the base of the tongue at the time of consultation, and he was judged as being at risk of developing an airway emergency. Since visual inspection did not reveal the location of the foreign body, we confirmed the location by ultrasound and CT. Emergency incision and drainage was performed under intraoperative ultrasound guidance, and the foreign body (fish bone) was removed. Our experience suggests that use of intraoperative ultrasound for a lingual abscess may be effective for identifying the location of the foreign body.
