title: Impalement injury by glass shard with delayed colonic perforation.
abstract: A 66-year-old man experienced a traumatic injury after a fall on top of a glass tea table, which caused some superficial lacerations all around the body. He was examined in the emergency room by a physician. The physician could not feel any foreign body upon wound exploration and sutured the laceration. Fourteen months after the injury, he developed progressive abdominal pain. On emergency room and abdominal x-ray showed a foreign body, which a CT scan revealed as an intraabdominal glass shard. The glass presumably impaled his abdominal wall as a result of his previous traumatic injury. The patient underwent laparotomy, which revealed a large glass (16x1cm) perforating the transverse colon. It was extracted and the perforation closed with a lineal stapler. There was no need of bowel resection and the patient was discharged home nine days after the intervention.
authors.affiliation: Department of General Surgery, Hospital Universitario Nuestra Señora de Candelaria, Ctra Del Rosario 145, 38010 Sta Cruz de Tenerife, Spain.
authors.forename: Adriá
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rosat
authors.affiliation: Department of General Surgery, Hospital Universitario Nuestra Señora de Candelaria, Ctra Del Rosario 145, 38010 Sta Cruz de Tenerife, Spain.
authors.forename: Juan Manuel
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Sánchez
authors.affiliation: Department of General Surgery, Hospital Universitario Nuestra Señora de Candelaria, Ctra Del Rosario 145, 38010 Sta Cruz de Tenerife, Spain.
authors.forename: Cristina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Chocarro
authors.affiliation: Transplantation Surgery Unit and General Surgery Service, Hospital Universitario Nuestra Señora de Candelaria, Ctra. Del Rosario 145, 38010 Sta. Cruz de Tenerife, Spain.
authors.forename: Manuel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Barrera
mesh_terms: D015746:Abdominal Pain / Q000209:etiology; D000058:Accidental Falls; D000368:Aged; D003106:Colon / Q000293:injuries*; D005547:Foreign Bodies / Q000150:complications*; D005898:Glass; D006801:Humans; D007416:Intestinal Perforation / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000601:surgery; D007813:Laparotomy / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D014950:Wounds, Penetrating / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000601:surgery
keywords: Impalement; delayed colonic perforation; glass