Citation

Mandat TS, Honey CR, Peters DA, Sharma BR. Acta Neurochir. (Wien) 2005; 147(3): 331-3; discussion 332-3.

Affiliation

Division of Neurosurgery, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2005, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s00701-004-0429-7

PMID

15605201

Abstract

The authors report a case of penetrating head injury that presented with a deceptively mild complaint. To our knowledge, it is the first report of a paint brush penetrating the brain. The patient reported being punched in the left eye and presented with a minor headache, swelling around the left orbit, a small cut on the cheek and slightly reduced left eye abduction. After radiological evaluation, a penetrating head injury was diagnosed. Under general anesthesia, through a lateral eyelid incision a 10.5 cm long paint brush, which had penetrated from the left orbit to the right thalamus, was removed. No post-operative infection was seen at six months follow-up. This brief report serves to highlight that penetrating brain injury can occur without neurological deficit and that a minimally invasive surgical approach was successful in avoiding any complications.

Language: en