Lebanese doctors treated a patient suffering from severe abdominal pain. They discovered she had a vaginal stone the size of an orange in her pelvis.
- Lebanese doctors discovered a vaginal stone the size of an orange in a 27-year-old patient.
- They fragmented the stone so that they could then remove the different pieces by forceps.
- Bedridden due to cerebral palsy, the patient had risk factors.
A 27-year-old woman presented to the emergency room of Al-zahraa hospital in Beirut, Lebanon. She said she had been suffering from fever, chills, vomiting, loss of appetite and severe abdominal pain for three days. Doctors discovered that the cause of her symptoms was a very large vaginal stone. In the scientific journal Urology Case Reportsthey return to this very rare case.
Vaginal stone: rare cases and often misdiagnosed
“Vaginal stones are rarely encountered in practice, often misdiagnosed as bladder stonesthey specify in the preamble. The clinical manifestation can be nonspecific, ranging from asymptomatic stones to the acute onset of fever or abdominal discomfort, making diagnosis difficult.“These stones take the form of very hard crystals.
In this patient’s case, doctors performed a pelvic and abdominal CT scan after she arrived at the emergency room. This allowed them to discover a large, round mass in the pelvic area. “CT scan of the abdomen and pelvis showed a round calcified structure in the pelvis occupying the space between the bladder and rectum probably pushing upward from the uterus occupying the vaginal spacethey describe. It measures 9 × 10 cm; another obstructive stone of 1.4 cm was observed.”
More than three hours of operation to remove the vaginal stone
Six weeks later, the patient underwent an operation under general anesthesia. Doctors first fragmented the stone, then extracted the different pieces using forceps. In total, the intervention lasted 3 hours and ten minutes. “No injuries were noted, specify the doctors. The postoperative period was uneventful, the patient was discharged on antibiotics and caregivers were advised to maintain scheduled follow-up.”
How to explain the appearance of vaginal stones?
This monitoring is particularly necessary because 27-year-old women are at greater risk than average of suffering from stones. In fact, she suffers from spastic cerebral palsy, which forces her to remain bedridden. “Cerebral palsy is frequently associated with urinary incontinence and results in constant leaking of urine into the vagina., indicate the authors. However, vaginal stones are linked to the presence of stagnant urine, which turns into crystals. “In addition, prolonged lying down causes urinary stasis, thus promoting the formation of stones.” Stasis refers to the phenomenon of stagnation of urine. But the formation of these stones can also be linked to other elements such as diet, urinary pH, the microbiome, genetics or even hormones. For the authors, the main risk factor remains incontinence, for bedridden people. They therefore believe that better control and management of incontinence is one of the easily applicable prevention measures.
