A 35-year-old man went to the hospital complaining of blood in his urine and painful urination — only for doctors to discover a far more alarming problem hidden throughout his body.
Scans revealed multiple needle-like metal objects lodged in several locations, including near his heart, abdominal wall, pelvis, bladder and penis, according to a case report published Sept. 7 in BMC Cardiovascular Disorders.
The patient, who was treated at Hunan Provincial People’s Hospital in Changsha, China, had been experiencing urinary symptoms for about two weeks. Otherwise, doctors said he appeared relatively stable and showed no obvious heart or breathing problems.
That changed when medical imaging revealed something unusual near his heart.
A contrast-enhanced CT scan uncovered multiple metallic foreign bodies scattered throughout his body. An ultrasound of the heart also showed a roughly 36-millimeter — about 1.4-inch — linear object penetrating the area around the left ventricle.
Doctors believed the object posed the greatest immediate danger.
According to the medical team, the patient had an intellectual disability dating back to childhood and could not provide a clear explanation for how the objects ended up inside him. His father, who acted as his legal representative, also could not explain their origin.
The physicians ultimately concluded that the objects were likely connected to self-insertion behavior, although the precise circumstances were not independently established.
Surgeons decided that the object affecting the heart could not safely be left alone.
The patient underwent open-chest surgery through a median sternotomy, the same type of chest incision commonly used for major heart surgery. Using real-time ultrasound guidance, surgeons located and removed a bla
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