New Delhi, June 24 -- In a shocking medical case, a 64-year-old man in China discovered a toothbrush he accidentally swallowed over five decades ago had been lodged in his intestines all along, according to a report by the South China Morning Post.

The man, surnamed Yang, from Anhui province in eastern China, recently visited a hospital after experiencing persistent stomach discomfort. Scans revealed a 17-centimetre toothbrush stuck in his small intestine- a foreign object he had ingested when he was just 12 years old.

Yang told doctors he had been too frightened to inform his parents at the time and assumed the toothbrush would dissolve or pass naturally through his system. For years, he remained symptom-free until recently.

Doctors a...