The 3.5 cm sewing pin had become lodged in the right ventricle. It was removed by doctors and the 17-year-old is now in good health.
- A 17-year-old patient found himself with a pin in his heart after sewing.
- Open-heart surgery removed the small metal object.
- Scientists believe the pin passed directly from the stomach to the heart or via the gastrointestinal tract.
Be careful if you darn your clothes! In The Journal of Emergency Medicine, doctors tell how a 17-year-old patient found himself with a pin in the heart, after doing some sewing. At the time, the young American did not realize that he had swallowed a small pin, but soon after, he began to feel chest pains. For three days, they last, are strong and diffuse: when he lies down or breathes deeply, they get worse. He went to the emergency room where the doctors found that he was also suffering from fatigue and dyspnea, respiratory discomfort. They perform an electrocardiogram and also diagnose perimyocarditis, inflammation of the heart muscle.
open heart surgery
The doctors push their analyzes and find that this diagnosis is not the right one: a scan of the chest reveals that the teenager has a pin 3.5 cm long in the right ventricle of the heart, which sends blood to the lungs. When carers asked him how the object got there, he recalled that he sometimes held his sewing pins in his mouth. Open-heart surgery removed the small metal object. Today, the youngster is in good health. Scientists believe the pin passed directly from the stomach to the heart or via the gastrointestinal tract.
Frequent cases
Regularly, researchers relate cases of misplaced objects in the human body. In the absence of symptoms, it is recommended not to remove them systematically, because they can be evacuated naturally: between eight and nine out of ten ingested objects are eliminated without treatment or complication. For Dr. Bonnie Mathews, who saw this case in the United States, the experience of this teenager shows “the potentially devastating complications of foreign body ingestion”. 80% of cases of ingestion of objects concern children aged six months to three years. If you inadvertently swallow a sharp object, you must contact a doctor or the SAMU as soon as possible.
.
