Retained surgical textilomas occur more often during war.

Abstract

Retained surgical textile foreign bodies are a problem despite precautions taken by surgeons. Computed tomography (CT) is a method of choice in diagnosing the cases of retained textilomas. Over 12 years, we diagnosed 11 acute textilomas in 10 patients in the early postoperative period within 3 months after abdominal surgery. The presence of considerable amount of air bubbles within textile fibers was the most representative sign. A 3-10 mm wide peripheral rim was present in all textilomas. In additional 3 cases, chronic, encapsulated foreign body granulomas were found, two were mimicking renal neoplasms. All granulomas contained discrete or coarse calcifications. The period between surgery and CT diagnosis was from 6 months to 14 years in chronic lesions. It is important to emphasize that 9 textilloma in 8 patients were associated with the years of war in Croatia (1991 and 1992), in hospitals on battle fronts, where surgeons worked under extremely strenuous conditions and with great inflow of wounded soldiers and civilians.