Dermatology Online Journal

Foreign bodies are rarely retained in the skin after puncture wounds or impalement injuries and are even less commonly initially detected several months after penetration. Sewing needles are most frequently reported in the literature as foreign bodies in cases of ingestion, inoculation of the cranium and heart, and penetration of the knee. Herein we describe a case of a middle-aged man who presented to the outpatient dermatology clinic with an 8-month history of a nodule in his left thigh; he had noted recent onset of mild pain. On examination he was found to have a sharp needle-like point palpable below the skin of his left lateral thigh. Plain radiographs of the left thigh showed a fractured sewing needle overlying the same area. During local incision, two fragments of a sewing needle were removed from the lateral thigh.