the lucky needle stick prank

 there is a story out there that a bunch of girls were stuck with needles in France, supposedly the needles was connected to a syringe. Probably an idea spread via the social media and a prank, but the cops are checking if the syringes were injecting drugs or poisons.

But of course, even a simple needle stick can spread HIV and Hep B, if the needle is used more than once. 

So who knows.

Well, anyway, this reminded me of a story of when I was in private practice 30+ years ago. My partner had a child patient with type I diabetes who carried her syringe with her to Middle school, and one day one of the boys asked to see it, and when she showed it to him, he grabbed an (empty) syringe and went around stabbing several of the girls nearby.

So we had to test our patients who were victims for Hep B and HIV, and arrange a retest in three months if any of those involved tested positive ( these viruses could have spread via needle stick if any one was positive). Luckily they were all negative, so end of the problem.

But one of the girls I saw looked a bit, uh, fat. She had thyroid problems, said mom, so mom was not worried at her putting on weight. 

But she was 14, and even though she had not missed a period, I did a pregnancy test, which was negative.

Now, I wondered if it was an ovarian cyst, 

Usually you can feel the edge of an ovarian cyst, but ten years earlier I had another case where the edge of the cyst was right under the liver, and could not be defined by examination. And in this young lady the examination was similarly vague.

So we did an MRI, which did show it was a cyst. A huge cyst that filled her abdomen, about the size of a seven month pregnancy.

So I sent her to the local Gyn who operated and removed a huge ovarian cyst, luckily non cancerous. And  she kept photos of the cyst so she could show her friends to prove she was not pregnant.

small cysts are common, but these huge cysts are rare: as I mentioned, I only saw two cases in 40 years of practice.

 

The surgery is tricky because you have to remove them intact, so you don't spill the fluid into the abdomen...and serous cystadenoma tumors have a thin wall. Luckily neither patient had a cancerous ovarian cyst, and did well.

But I wonder: there are no coincidences, and what would have happened if the girl hadn't been stuck with a needle in a middle school prank? She was active in sports, so what would have happened if she fell  and the cyst burst?

Back then, the surgery was a regular laporotomy (big incision on the abdomen) but now apparently they can safely drain the tumor and remove it via laporoscopy.

video  here.