Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Case Reports
. 2014 Sep 18:8:311.
doi: 10.1186/1752-1947-8-311.

Gossypiboma 19 years after laminectomy mimicking a malignant spinal tumour: a case report

Takashi Kobayashi  1 , Naohisa Miyakoshi, Eiji Abe, Toshiki Abe, Tetsuya Suzuki, Masato Takahashi, Yoichi Shimada
Affiliations
Case Reports

Gossypiboma 19 years after laminectomy mimicking a malignant spinal tumour: a case report

Takashi Kobayashi et al. J Med Case Rep. .

Abstract

Introduction: Gossypiboma is rare and mostly asymptomatic in chronic cases. It can be confused with other soft tissue masses.

Case presentation: Our patient was an 87-year-old Japanese man with a history of surgery for a lumbar lesion causing lumbar canal stenosis 19 years earlier. Computed tomography showed a soft tissue mass with osteolysis and periosteal thickening of the vertebral lamina. On magnetic resonance imaging, the mass showed heterogeneous signal intensity on T2-weighted imaging, suggesting a malignancy. At the time of biopsy, small pieces of retained surgical sponge were collected. Surgical treatment was performed to excise the soft tissue tumour.

Conclusions: Gossypiboma should be included in the differential diagnosis of soft tissue masses in the paraspinal region in patients with a history of previous spinal surgery.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Magnetic resonance imaging sagittal and axial images. A soft tissue mass (open arrow) at the L3 to 4 level is hypointense compared with the spinal cord on the T1-weighted image (a, c), and heterogeneous signal intensity is seen on the T2-weighted image (b, d).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Computed tomography axial image. A mass (open arrow) is seen posterior to the lamina with osteolytic change.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Macroscopic appearance of the retained sponge material at biopsy.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Histological findings. A fresh foreign body reaction around the gauze fibre (arrow, a) and fibrin deposition (open arrow), which indicates an old foreign body reaction (b) are seen (hematoxylin and eosin ×20).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Aydogan M, Mirzanli C, Ganiyusufoglu K, Tezer M, Ozturk I. A 13-year-old textiloma (gossypiboma) after discectomy for lumbar disc herniation: a case report and review of the literature. Spine J. 2007;7:618–621. doi: 10.1016/j.spinee.2006.08.004. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Atabey C, Turgut M, Ilica AT. Retained surgical sponge in differential diagnosis of paraspinal soft-tissue mass after posterior spinal surgery: report of eight cases. Neurol India. 2009;57:320–323. doi: 10.4103/0028-3886.53289. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Hakan T, Aydoseli A, Demir K, Aker F. Clinical, pathological and radiological features of paraspinal textiloma: report of two cases and review of the literature. Neurol Neurochir Pol. 2009;43:475–478. - PubMed
    1. Is M, Karatas A, Akgul M, Yildirim U, Gezen F. A retained surgical sponge (gossypiboma) mimicking a paraspinal abscess. Br J Neurosurg. 2007;21:307–308. doi: 10.1080/02688690701367701. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Kim HS, Chung T-S, Suh SH, Kim SY. MR imaging findings of paravertebral gossypiboma. AJNR Am J Neuroradiol. 2007;28:709–713. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types