Impacted thoracic foreign bodies after penetrating chest trauma.

Background: Retained foreign bodies in the chest may include shell fragments, bullets, shrapnel, pieces of clothing, bones, and rib fragments. The risks of removal of foreign bodies must be weighed against the complications of leaving them inside the chest.

Methods: We treated 90 cases of retained intrathoracic foreign bodies in patients admitted to 3 tertiary centers in Saudi Arabia between March 2015 and March 2016.