Man had a 4-inch piece of cement in his heart
A man developed an uncommon side effect after his spinal procedure: a 4-inch piece of cement ended up in his heart. The 56-year-old man went to the emergency room after he experienced chest pain and difficulty breathing, according to a report of the case, published Oct. 2 in The New England Journal of Medicine. The man had recently undergone a spinal procedure to treat a vertebral compression fracture — a very painful condition in which part of a spine bone (vertebra) collapses into itself, Live Science reported. The man had undergone a kyphoplasty, a procedure in which doctors inject a special type of cement into the vertebra to restore its proper height and keep it from collapsing. A rare side effect of this procedure is that the cement can leak from the bone into other areas, which can cause a blockage, or embolism, of a blood vessel. This is what happened in the man's case — the cement leaked from the bone into his veins, where it hardened and embolized, traveling to his heart, the authors said. Doctors were able to remove the cement embolism and repair a tear in his heart.