Well-tolerated intracorneal wood foreign body of 40-year duration

To report the diagnosis and management of a patient with a well-tolerated, long-standing retained intracorneal foreign body.

We describe the case of a 62-year-old man with a 40-year-old retained wood foreign body within the posterior stroma of the cornea. To the authors' knowledge, this is the longest standing intracorneal foreign body reported in the literature.

The foreign body was asymptomatic, well tolerated, and appeared encapsulated, so the patient was carefully observed. One year later, the examination remained stable.

Our case seems to violate the classic teaching that some inorganic intracorneal foreign bodies are well tolerated, whereas organic foreign bodies are poorly tolerated. It is possible that foreign organic material--if early infection is avoided--can be well tolerated by the eye.