Thirty-Five Years of Gossypiboma

The term gossypiboma refers to a textile matrix object left in a body cavity during surgery. It is often mistaken for other pathologies and symptoms can be very heterogeneous. Retained surgical items often have legal as well as clinical consequences. To reduce the incidence of gossypiboma, safety procedures have been proposed that the surgical team must implement. In case of an occasional finding during another procedure, it is necessary to share the most correct management. The case we present involves a patient in whom an intra-abdominal mass was identified during a laparoscopic cholecystectomy. The initial decision was to perform a biopsy of the mass and postpone the definitive surgery. Histological examination provided the diagnosis of gossypiboma. The patient's medical history revealed that the surgical item had been retained for 35 years. Subsequently, we performed a second operation in which the gossypiboma was removed at the same time as the cholecystectomy.