BEIJING: Surgeons in southern China successfully removed a rusty 10-centimetre knife from the skull of a man who said it had been there for four years, the hospital said.

Li Fuyan, 30, had been complaining of severe headaches, bad breath and breathing difficulties but never knew the cause of his discomfort, a senior official at the Yuxi City People's Hospital in Yunnan province said.

Splitting headache ... an X-ray reveals the blade in Mr Li’s skull.

Mr Li told doctors he had been stabbed in the lower right jaw by a robber four years ago. The blade had broken off without anyone realising it, said the director of the hospital's Communist Party committee's office who would only give his surname, He.

Surgeons had worked cautiously to remove the badly corroded blade without shattering it, Mr He said. The hospital's website also reported the successful surgery.