A resident of China was suffering from an incomprehensible cough and already suspected he had cancer, but the true source of the problem turned out to be a piece of hot pepper stuck in his lung. This is reported by pravilamag.ru with reference to the South China Morning Post.

A 54-year-old man surnamed Xu from eastern China’s Zhejiang Province had been coughing for two years, and cough medicine had not brought relief.

Xu assumed he had lung cancer and eventually visited doctors. Initially, his fears seemed justified: a scan revealed a “mass” measuring 1 cm in diameter, and pre-operative examination only added to the concern, showing an enlargement of the right lung.

The patient was referred for surgery, during which the surgeon planned to take a tissue sample to determine the nature of the mass, but as a result it was discovered that there was a foreign object in the man’s lungs.

After this, Xu remembered that he choked on hot pepper while eating two years ago. Doctors believe that the pepper could have entered the lungs through the respiratory tract.

The foreign body caused inflammation of the lymph nodes in the right lung and was hidden under the tissue, which complicated its detection by standard examination methods.

The head physician of the hospital, Ye Jian, noted that doctors often find foreign objects inside patients: animal bones, earrings and even dentures.