An Acupuncture Needle Remaining in a Lung for 17 years: Case Study and Review

Abstract

The case of a 67-year-old patient with an acupuncture needle remaining in his left lung is described. This foreign body was a remnant of a procedure performed by a doctor 17 years previously for osteoarthritic back pain. On the basis of this case, a review was performed of literature available in the PubMed database dealing with acupuncture needles remaining in a patient's body. A total of 25 articles were found. The articles describe needles found in the bladder, shoulder girdle, spinal cord, right ventricle, L5 nerve root, medulla oblongata, skin, carpal tunnel, nuchal and occipital area, calf and paraspinal muscle. Migration of needle fragments to the liver, pancreas, stomach, colon, breast, kidney, muscles, and spinal cord has been reported in the literature. In cases where patients were operated on, the needles were removed without subsequent complications and the patients recovered fully.

A sewing needle in contact with the cervical dura mater and vertebral artery

“…Needles have been identified as foreign bodies in the distal regions of the extremities as well as in the heart, [1] lung, [2] and liver. [3] Cervical foreign bodies have been previously reported, but the report of a foreign body in the cervical spine is rare.…”

The influence of ambulatory speed on gait biomechanical parameters

“…Vertical impulse and anterior-posterior impulse seem to have opposite behavior. the first one decreases significantly (26,28,48) as speed increases, while the second one increases significantly (33,48) . the impulse of a force is both determined by its intensity and by the time duration of its application.…”

“…relatively to the time duration of the stance phase, almost all papers showed a decrease (7,17,18,25,29,33,36,43,52,54,56,57,58) with the increase of walking speed, except Vito et al (59) who found no significant differences. this discrepancy may be explained by the low differences between the speed intervals studied in the late report, which was determined by the method used to choose gait speed-based on the principle of dynamic similarity.…”

“…eleCtromyoGraphy in general, it is possible to state that the gait speed affects the amplitude, timing and duration of the muscle activity. Fot the vastus lateralis, rectus femoris, biceps femoris, medial and lateral hamstrings, tibialis anterior, medial and lateral gastrocnemius, gluteus maximus, soleus, erector spinae, multifidus, obliquus abdominis, transversus abdominis and rectus abdominis there was an increase in their emG amplitudes as speed increased (9,10,25,27,33,36,46,51,60) . moreover, the emG amplitudes of biceps femoris, vastus lateralis and tibialis anterior increase their variability with walking speed (27) , which means that the increase with the speed is not always the same.…”

“…as we ex-pected, stride (18,30) and step (6,29,52) frequency increased as speed increased. stride and step length (6,14,16,25,26,(28)(29)(30)(31)33,37,45,53,59) also increased with walking speed. stride width was also analyzed in three studies (4,14,53) .…”