Foreign bodies needing rescue
18th September 2012
By Staff writer
The swab was the first to be successfully removed by sigmoidoscopy, but it’s not the first time that surgeons have left patients with a post-procedure souvenir. In fact, the phenomenon has its own name: gossypiboma, derived from the Latin for cotton, gossypium, and the Swahili word boma, meaning place of concealment.
However, surgery is not the only way patients become ill from retaining foreign bodies.
A new case study of a 45-year-old woman outlines how she