About a week after undergoing spinal surgery, a 56-year-old man showed up in an emergency room with a 4-inch piece of cement piercing his heart and right lung.
His story was covered in a peer reviewed report published Saturday in the New England Journal of Medicine. According to the report, the man came to the hospital with chest pain and imaging showed the intracardiac foreign body lodged in his chest.
“Intracardiac cement embolism was diagnosed,” it said.
During his kyphoplasty procedure the previous week, doctors treated an injury to his spine by injecting a special type of cement into damaged vertebrae, according to USA Today. This cement leaked from his spinal area and into his body, eventually travelling to his heart.
According to the Mayo Clinic, the kyphoplasty procedure is used to treat compression fractures of the spine and it utilizes small balloons.
“Kyphoplasty can correct spinal deformity and restore lost height,” said the clinic.
Once emergency room doctors determined the man’s chest pain was being caused by a foreign object, he was rushed into surgery. Surgeons removed the cement – described as “sharp” – and were able to repair damage to his heart according to the journal report.
Cement leakage is a known complication of kyphoplasty, but it is rare It occurs in less than 2 percent of patients caused by brittle bones, according to the American Association of Neurological Surgeons.
Around a month after the incident, the man was “nearly recovered” and had no complications from the surgery.
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