Tumour turns out to be 25-year-old towel

DOCTORS in Japan who carried out surgery on a man to remove a tumour had good news and bad news for him.

The good news was he did not have cancer.

The bad news: The growth that had been causing him pain was in fact a 25-year-old surgical towel.

The patient had been carrying the cloth since 1983, when surgeons left it in him after a minor operation to treat an ulcer, a spokesman for the hospital said.

The man, now 49, went in to another hospital in late May after suffering abdominal pain.