Tumour turns out to be an old towel!

Surgeons treating a Japanese patient for a suspected tumour had both good and bad news for him.

It seems the pain he had been experiencing which was thought to be caused by a tumour was in fact caused by a towel which was left in his abdomen 25 years earlier following surgery for an ulcer.

The patient had the initial surgery in 1983 to treat an ulcer at the Asahi General Hospital in Chiba, near Tokyo which is when the towel was overlooked.

The 49 year old man was taken into another hospital at the end of May this year suffering from abdominal pain when doctors, after examinations, found what was thought to be an eight-centimetre (3.2-inch) tumour.

During surgery to remove the 'tumour' it was revealed that it was in fact a towel, apparently greenish blue in colour and compressed to the size of a softball.

Officials from Asahi hospital have apologised to the man who does not plan to take legal action but it is expected that he will be offered some form compensation.

Japanese media reports say the man, who was not identified, still had his spleen removed.