Small Bowel Obstruction Due to a Gossypiboma: A Rare and Dreaded Sequel of a Trauma Laparotomy

Author Info

Arwa El Rifai Ahmad Ghazal George Abi Saad

Corresponding Author

Arwa El Rifai
Department of Surgery, American University of Beirut Medical Center, Beirut, Lebanon

A B S T R A C T

This is a case report of a 23-year-old male who presented to a hospital in Aleppo with a few months’ history of abdominal pain and diarrhea associated with progressive weight loss and ultimate cachexia. Patient’s history is significant for a trauma laparotomy due to a blast injury with management of a colonic and orthopedic injuries. Three months later he underwent a second laparotomy for reversal of the stoma after which his symptoms started and gradually became worse. The abdominal pain attacks were so severe unresponsive to analgesics and he had lost around 30 kg. He underwent CT scan on presentation which showed small bowel obstruction and was taken down to the operating room (OR) for exploration. In the operating room a hard mass was palpated in the small bowel and a small enterotomy was done overlying the mass with retrieval of a large surgical pad, gossypiboma, from the lumen. The enterotomy was closed primarily and the patient did well postoperatively and was discharged home.

Article Info

Article Type

Case Report

Publication history

Received: Wed 22, Jul 2020
Accepted: Sat 01, Aug 2020
Published: Fri 28, Aug 2020

Copyright

© 2023 Arwa El Rifai. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Hosting by Science Repository.
DOI: 10.31487/j.SCR.2020.08.14