Study estimates 1,500 instruments left inside patients annually
Ambulatory Safety Monitor, January 22, 2003
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It's more likely that surgeons will leave an instrument inside a patient in an emergency situation or if the patient is overweight, according to a study by the New England Journal of Medicine.
This finding was one of several in the study, which looked at 800,000 surgeries in Massachusetts from 1985 to 2001. The study also found that 61 pieces of surgical equipment, including sponges, clamps, and retractors, remained inside 54 patients after surgery. Based on these numbers, the journal estimated that 1,500 pieces of equipment were left inside patients annually in the United States.
The study conceded that, with approximately 28 million operations performed annually in the United States, the errors represented a small percentage of all surgeries.
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