Treatment of a Self-inflicted Intracranial Nail Gun Injury

Overview

Journal BMJ Case Rep

Specialty General Medicine

Date 2021 Jan 12

PMID 33431447

Citations 4

Authors

Roger Chen Zhu

Miya Catherine Yoshida

Miroslav Kopp

Ning Lin

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

A 30-year-old man walked into the emergency department after a suicide attempt by firing a nail from a pneumatic nail gun directed at his left temple. He was haemodynamically stable and neurologically intact, able to recall all events and moving all extremities with a Glascow Coma Scale of 15. CT of the brain showed a 6.3 cm nail in the right frontal region without major intracerebral vessel disruption. He was taken to the operating room for left temporal wound washout, debridement of gross contamination and closure with titanium cranial fixation plate. The foreign body was not accessible on initial surgical intervention and was left in place to define anatomy and plan for subsequent removal. Thin slice CT images were used to create 3D reconstructions to facilitate stereotactic navigation and foreign body removal via right craniotomy the following day. The patient tolerated the procedures well and recovered with full neurological function.

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