Doctors forget a dish-sized tool inside a woman's stomach, device removed after 18 months
- 05 Sep 2023
Mustafa Al Zoubi, Gulf Today
A young New Zealand woman suffered from abdominal pain for 18 months after undergoing a caesarean section, until an x-ray examination revealed the presence of an Alexis Retractor that doctors had mistakenly forgotten after completing the birth of her child at Auckland City Hospital.
The Alexis retractor, a device used to retract wound edges during surgery, was left in her abdomen after her caesarean section.
This led to the woman suffering from chronic abdominal pain until the device was discovered by chance through a CT scan of the abdomen.
The device, designed to tighten cracks up to 17 cm in diameter, is the size of a “plate” and would not have been detected without X-rays.
It was eventually removed from the woman's abdomen, after 18 months of visits to the GP.
On one occasion, her pain was so severe that she visited the emergency department at Auckland City Hospital.