title: Pulmonary embolisation of bone fragments from penetrating cranial gunshot wounds.
abstract: Bone embolism is a very rare event that usually occurs in trauma-induced septic bone lesions, after bone surgery or after bone marrow transplantation, and normally remains silent. To our knowledge, there are no previous reports of bone embolism after a gunshot to the head. We describe a case of pulmonary embolism associated with bone fragments after a gunshot to the head in which bone fragments surrounded by leukocytes, interstitial and intra-alveolar oedema and haemorrhage around the embolised vessels, leukostasis and fat and bone marrow embolism suggest that the survival time from the gunshot was sufficiently long to allow changes in lung microcirculation and lung tissue.
authors.affiliation: Department of anatomical, histological, medico-legal and locomotor apparatus sciences, Forensic Medicine section, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy. rossana.cecchi@uniroma1.it
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Cecchi
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Cipolloni
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Sestili
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Aromatario
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ciallella
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001842:Bone and Bones; D049429:Forensic Pathology; D020197:Head Injuries, Penetrating / Q000473:pathology*; D006470:Hemorrhage / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D007962:Leukocytes / Q000473:pathology; D008168:Lung / Q000473:pathology*; D008297:Male; D011654:Pulmonary Edema / Q000473:pathology; D011655:Pulmonary Embolism / Q000209:etiology* / Q000473:pathology; D014948:Wounds, Gunshot / Q000473:pathology*
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