Appendicular Foreign Body

The patient is a 52-year-old male, a hunter, who came to our emergency services due to abdominal pain that had been progressing over the previous 24 h with fever and nausea. Abdominal examination showed pain and guarding in the right iliac fossa. Anteroposterior abdominal X-ray (Fig. 1) revealed the presence of several small, round radiopaque images in a chain-like distribution, located in the right iliac fossa/flank.

Fig. 1

The patient underwent emergency surgery with a McBurney incision, and the ileocecal appendix was observed to have thickened walls and foreign bodies in its interior. An appendectomy was performed. The pathology study confirmed the diagnosis of acute appendicitis with the presence of several shotgun pellets in the lumen of the appendix (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2