Recurrent brain abscess due to an unexpected foreign body.

We report an exceptional case of a patient with chronic frontal sinusitis complicated by chronic osteomyelitis and a cutaneous fistula. A recurrent brain abscess developed and was only cured after a very unusual wooden retained foreign body was removed at surgery. The hazards of wood as a foreign body are discussed and it is stressed that the possibility of a retained foreign body, even unsuspected, must always be borne in mind.