[Spontaneous rejection of an intraocular foreign body]

The right eye of a 17-year-old patient had been injured by a metallic, nonmagnetic foreign body which had perforated the eye at the limbus at 6 o'clock and become lodged in the posterior part of the ciliary body near the ora serrata. The operation to remove the foreign body was unsuccessful. After three months without any inflammatory reaction the patient noticed it in the conjunctiva. The splinter had been spontaneously rejected via the same route by which it had entered the eye; it was removed from the point of entry under local anesthesia. The special circumstances which, in the authors' opinion, led to spontaneous rejection of this foreign body are discussed.