Annals of Radiology

Missed Foreign Body Falsely Interpreted as Glass in Surgery

Correspondence to Author: Jakob Hama

Internal Medicine, New York City Health and Hospitals Queens Hospital Center, 82-68 164th St, Queens, NY.

DOI: 10.52338/aor.2024.3927

Abstract:

Retained foreign bodies (FBs) in soft tissues are typically a complication of open wounds from trauma, accidents, and surgery, for which plenty of patients seek acute medical care. The importance of localizing these FBs is vital to patient health because it reduces the detrimental complications of loss of function, local tissue damage, infection, and sepsis. In today’s modern age, many automobile taillights are composed of three components: the polycarbonate outer shell, the light bulb, and various metal casings. Occasionally, patients present with one of these objects retained in their body. Here, we present the case of a FB that was dictated as a hematoma; however, it was a piece of polycarbonate that was reported as a piece of glass in the operating room transcript. Based upon imaging a piece of taillight polycarbonate at our institution, the Hounsfield units (HU) averaged to be 88.62. Nonetheless, if there is acute blood in soft tissues, taillight plastic could be an appropriate differential; however, a hematoma is less likely to be polycarbonate from car rear lights based on the HU.

Keywords

foreign body, left knee, extraarticular, infection.

Abbreviations

foreign body (FB), emergency department (ED), radiograph (x-ray), computed tomography (CT), ultrasonography (US), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Citation:

Jakob Hama. Missed Foreign Body Falsely Interpreted as Glass in Surgery. Annals of Radiology 2024.