4 Inch Long Cement Piece Found In Man's Heart After Spinal Cord Surgery Went Wrong: Pitfalls of Medical Negligence

What comes to your mind when you hear the word medical negligence? to be precise, the word means medical malpractice which normally involves a serious medical error. Some of the serious pitfalls of medical negligence are listed below.

In a rare incident, a man in the US was found with a four-inches long cement in the heart, during a monthly checkup. According to the reports, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the doctors found out about the strange condition when the patient complained about chronic chest pain and difficulty while breathing. So how did the cement end up inside the man's heart? While giving a statement to a local news organization, the 56-year-old man said that he had undergone spinal surgery just a week earlier. Soon, after this statement, extensive research was done, which eventually undercovered that leakage from the place where his spinal surgery was performed a few days back, led to the accumulation of the cement in his heart. "An extensive study on the matter suggests that the spinal cord surgery that the 56-year-old man went through had a say in the cement deposit in his chest," a doctor in the research team told the media.

Spinal Surgery All You Need To Know About Kyphoplasty

Kyphoplasty is generally used to treat broken vertebra, the condition which is also known as 'vertebral compression fracture'. So what exactly happens during kyphoplasty? In kyphoplasty, a patient with a broken spinal cord is injected with a special type of medicinal cement into the vertebra, which protects it from getting collapsed and helps in maintaining proper height.

Coming to the spinal problem, a patient suffering from vertebral compression fracture generally experiences a painful period of treatment. In this condition, the spinal cord collapses due to osteoporosis. This condition is often called weak bone syndrome which affects old aged people.

What Exactly Went Wrong In This Case?

After extensive research on the matter, the doctors concluded that the cement, used in the treatment of the broken vertebra leaked into the man's heart post-surgery directly from the spinal cord. The cement then accumulated and formed a hard four-inches rod kind of shape inside the heart. This condition was only diagnosed when the man underwent CT Scan and X-Ray after experiencing unbearable chest pain.

Pitfalls of Medical Negligence

What comes to your mind when you hear the word medical negligence? to be precise, the word means medical malpractice which normally involves a serious medical error. Some of the serious pitfalls of medical negligence are:

• Failing to provide a proper standard of care to the patient. In India, a recent report revealed that around 52 lakh medical injuries are recorded every year from across the hospitals. It is an extremely serious concern as the report says that 10 people fall victim to medical negligence every minute and more than 11 people die every hour in the country due to this medical error.

• Medical negligence or malpractice can also lead to another serious injury later on in life which can turn fatal.

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• Some of the other side effects of medical negligence include - long-time suffering, persistent pain, disability, and even death.

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