Vietnam man lives 15 years with surgical suture in stomach

A man in southern Vietnam has lived with a surgical suture in his stomach for fifteen years without realising.

The discovery was made when Nguyen Khac T., 52, in Binh Minh Town, Vinh Long Province was rushed to Can Tho General Hospital in Can Tho City for surgery on Monday as he could no longer bear the pain in his abdomen.

It was not until doctors told him the examinations and scan results that he recognized the origin of the suture lying in his body.

T. said that he had appendicitis surgery at a hospital in Can Tho in 2001. Eleven months later, he was hospitalized to have another operation due to a bowel obstruction, T. continued.

“Perhaps doctors forgot to remove the suture at that time,” T. recounted, adding that he had usually suffered from stomachache since then.

“I went to local hospitals for diagnosis many times but the doctors only suggested taking some medicine and let me go home,” he said.

Doctor La Van Phu, chief of the surgery department of Can Tho General Hospital announced that the operation to remove the suture was a success.

“We found it most difficult to navigate the suture’s location.

“We did use magnets to try identify its location, but it failed,” Dr. Phu said, adding that the surgeons eventually managed to locate it with a C-arm to conduct X-ray imaging.

“The suture was located in the patient’s greater omentum,” he recounted.

After two hours of surgery, the suture was removed from T.’s stomach and he was in a stable condition, doctors said.

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