A rooster's revenge: hepatic abscess caused by a chicken bone.
We present the case of a liver abscess caused by a swallowed chicken bone in an elderly man successfully treated with laparotomy. This report illustrates the difficulties of obtaining a preoperative diagnosis. The prolonged time course of the illness, the lack of history of the ingestion of a foreign body, the relatively non-specific symptoms and signs and the non-specific results obtained by conventional radiography resulted in a delayed recognition of this possibly fatal disease. This rare condition should be kept in mind when dealing with cases of hepatic abscess or even septic shock of unknown origin.
Starakis
Ioannis
I
Department of Internal Medicine, Infectious Diseases Section, University Hospital, 26500 Rion, Patras, Greece. istarakis@yahoo.com
Karavias
Dionysios
D
Marangos
Markos
M
Psoni
Eleni
E
Bassaris
Harry
H
D000368:Aged; D000818:Animals; D001842:Bone and Bones; D002645:Chickens; D004635:Emergency Medicine / Q000379:methods; D005547:Foreign Bodies / Q000150:complications* / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000601:surgery; D006801:Humans; D007813:Laparotomy; D008099:Liver / Q000601:surgery; D008100:Liver Abscess / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology* / Q000601:surgery; D008297:Male; D016896:Treatment Outcome