title: "Luck's always to blame": silent wounds of a penetrating gunshot trauma sustained 20 years ago.
abstract: Gunshot tracheal injuries represent life-threatening events and usually necessitate emergent surgical intervention. We report a case of an exceptional finding of a patient with retained ballistic fragments in the soft tissues of the thorax, proximal to the right subclavian artery and the trachea, carrying silently his wounds for two decades without any medical or surgical intervention. The bullet pellet on the upper part of the trachea seen accidentally in the chest computed tomography, was also found during bronchoscopy. In short "luck's always to blame".
authors.affiliation: IInd Pulmonary Department, "Attikon" University Hospital, Athens Medical School, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. etomos@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Ioannis
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Tomos
authors.forename: Effrosyni D
authors.initials: ED
authors.lastname: Manali
authors.forename: Stylianos
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Argentos
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Raptakis
authors.forename: Spyros A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Papiris
mesh_terms: D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001999:Bronchoscopy; D005547:Foreign Bodies; D006801:Humans; D033162:Incidental Findings; D008297:Male; D010996:Pleural Effusion / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis; D013909:Thorax / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D013997:Time Factors; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed; D014132:Trachea / Q000473:pathology; D014376:Tuberculosis / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis; D014948:Wounds, Gunshot / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis*; D014950:Wounds, Penetrating / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis*
keywords: bronchoscopy; gunshot injury; trauma