Overview

• At age 12, Yang swallowed a 17-cm plastic toothbrush and kept it secret, believing it would dissolve on its own
• The brush remained lodged in a crook of his small intestine for five decades without causing major symptoms
• A routine digestive scan after recent stomach pain revealed the foreign object deep in his intestine
• Surgeons spent 80 minutes extracting the toothbrush via endoscopy in the hospital’s lengthiest such operation in three years
• Medical experts warn that undetected intestinal foreign bodies can shift and perforate the gut wall, posing life-threatening risks