Surgical items retained in the abdominal cavity in diagnostic imaging tests: a series of 10 cases and literature review

Despite improvements in the safety of surgical procedures, leaving a foreign object in a patient’s body is still one of the complications of surgical procedures. The literature lacks an analysis of the effectiveness of specific diagnostic tests in detecting foreign objects. The authors present a discussion of the effectiveness of selected techniques and examples of the appearance of foreign bodies in radiological images based on the description of 10 cases. Leaving surgical haemostatic material in the abdominal or pelvic cavity is an underestimated phenomenon that poses a serious diagnostic problem. Computed tomography is the most sensitive method for detecting a foreign body, while a chest or abdominal X-ray is the simplest and most effective way to identify the surgical material. Ultrasound, although widely available, has not shown utility in diagnosing foreign bodies in our cases. Awareness of this problem is necessary to avoid unnecessary mortality in surgical patients.