Abstract
The case involved a 79-year-old man who underwent laparoscopic cholecystectomy for acute cholecystitis in October 2009 and was discharged from our hospital on the seventh postoperative day after uneventful postoperative course. After discharge, he had been treated for diabetes mellitus in the department of internal medicine in our hospital until March 2011, when the patient was seen at our department because of right lateral abdominal pain. An abdominal CT scan showed an about 11-cm diameter abscess in the right lateral abdominal wall which involved a piece of metal. The metallic piece was considered to be a clip used for ligation at the previous operation from its shape. The abscess disappeared by percutaneous abscess drainage, but there was a risk of recurrence of the abscess due to the remnant clip and we determined to remove the clip. We confirmed the location of the clip by abdominal ultrasonography and removed the clip from the abdominal wall muscle layer under fluoroscopy.
We rarely encounter the abscess formation in the abdominal cavity due to a remnant clip, but no cases of abdominal wall abscess formation due to a remnant clip have been reported so far. Clips which are left after laparoscopic-assisted surgeries can cause abscess formation. It would be important to recover unnecessary escaped clips completely.
