Abstract
A 33-year-old woman, who had undergone Caesarean section at a hospital at 31 years of age, visited our hospital because of nausea and vomiting. A plain abdominal X-ray showed an intranslucent thread-like mass in the pelvis. CT revealed small-bowel distention with an air-fluid level and a 3.5-cm mass like area in the small intestine in the lower abdomen. Intestinal obstruction due to a foreign body was diagnosed, and surgery was performed on the same day. An approximately 20-cm segment of the small bowel had become markedly kinked, forming a conglomerated mass. Detachment of the conglomerated small bowel revealed a perforation at that site, and a solid object was palpable in the proximal bowel segment. The conglomerated small bowel segment was resected along with the solid object, which was found to be gauze containing a radiopaque thread.
Postoperative intraperitoneal foreign body is an iatrogenic complication that can rarely lead to sepsis and intestinal obstruction or perforation, so it is required careful medical attention. This patient represents a case of an aberrant medical gauze that had been left in the abdominal cavity during the previous surgery and migrated into the vowel. Such a case is rare in the literature, and also interesting in terms of its pathogenesis.
