Paraspinal gossybipoma: A case report and review of the literature

Abstract

Spinal or paraspinal retained surgical sponges (gossybipoma or textiloma) are rare incidents and mostly asymptomatic in chronic cases, but can be confused with other masses such as a hematoma, an abscess or a tumor. In chronic cases, the presentation can be as late as decades after the initial surgery; however, some gossybipomas cause infection or abscess formation in the early stages. The authors report a 40-year-old woman with a history of operation for lumbar disk herniation before 8 months, and got admitted with a complaint of serous fluid leakage from the operation wound. In this report, the authors discuss the clinical presentation, the radiologic findings and the differential diagnosis of gossybipoma.

Keywords: Gossybipoma; retained surgical sponge; spine; surgery; textiloma.

Figure 1

Lumbar imaging of our case revealed a paravertebral mass lesion located in the left side of the previous operation site (arrows). (a) Axial CT scan, (b) axial post-contrast enhanced MRI, (c) sagittal T2-weighted MRI

Figure 2

A photomicrograph shows the mononuclear cell infi ltration and fi brosis formation around the retained sponge (H and E, ×200)