Swordfish bill injury involving abdomen and vertebral column: case report and review

BMC Surgery

Case Report

Despoina Georgiadou¹  Dennis Vaidakis¹  Spiridon Avlonitis¹  Emmanouil N Tzirakis¹  George N Zografos¹  George Papastratis¹  Angeliki Katopodi¹  Panagiotis Sioutos²  Penelope Lampropoulou³  Charalambos Drossos³ 

[1] 3rd Surgical Clinic of George Gennimatas General Hospital, Mesogeion Ave 154, 156 69, Athens, Greece;Department of Neurosurgery of George Gennimatas General Hospital, Mesogeion Ave 154, 156 69, Athens, Greece;Department of Radiology of George Gennimatas General Hospital, Mesogeion Ave 154, 156 69, Athens, Greece;

关键词: Foreign Body;    Inferior Vena Cava;    Spinal Canal;    Bile Leak;    Cauda Equina Syndrome;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2482-10-30

 received in 2010-01-12, accepted in 2010-10-22,  发布年份 2010

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundPenetrating injuries of the abdomen and spinal canal that involve organic material of animal origin are extremely rare and derive from domestic and wild animal attacks or fish attacks.Case presentationIn this case report we present the unique, as far as the literature is concerned, unprovoked woman's injury to the abdomen by a swordfish. There are only four cases of swordfish attacks on humans in the literature - one resulted to thoracic trauma, two to head trauma and one to knee trauma, one of which was fatal - none of which were unprovoked. Three victims were professional or amateur fishermen whereas in the last reported case the victim was a bather as in our case. Our case is the only case where organic debris of animal's origin remained in the spinal canal after penetrating trauma.ConclusionsAlthough much has been written about the management of penetrating abdominal and spinal cord trauma, controversy remains about the optimal management. Moreover, there is little experience in the management of patients with such spinal injuries, due to the fact that such cases are extremely rare. In this report we focus on the patient's treatment with regard to abdominal and spinal trauma and present a review of the literature.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Georgiadou et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2010