Citation

Kaufeld T, Zeckey C, Marquardt S, Krettek C, Haverich A, Tudorache I. Ann. Thorac. Surg. 2016; 102(6): e545-e546.

Affiliation

Department of Cardiothoracic, Transplant, and Vascular Surgery, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Society of Thoracic Surgeons, Publisher Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.athoracsur.2016.05.040

PMID

27847077

Abstract

A 21-year-old woman with a history of psychiatric treatment was admitted to the emergency department with self-inflicted stab wounds to the neck, chest, and abdomen as the result of a suicide attempt. Inspection showed a seemingly superficial cut at the jugular fossa. The patient's mother stated that one long ceramic kitchen bread knife was totally embedded in the right thorax. Further diagnostic measures showed the missing kitchen bread knife penetrating the right chest, with the path of insertion starting 2 cm above the right clavicle and the blade in contact with the right hilum and ending next to the seventh thoracic vertebra. Retrieval the object was a challenging problem.

Copyright © 2016 The Society of Thoracic Surgeons. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Language: en