Migrated Kirschner Wire in the Posterior Mediastinum

Abstract

At the age of 11 years, a female patient had sustained a fracture of the right humerus. She underwent open reduction and internal fixation with two straight Kirschner wires (K-wires). Twenty years later, at the age of 31 years, she underwent a chest roentgenogram for suspected respiratory symptoms when it was discovered that one of the K-wires (arrow in Fig. 1) had migrated to the mediastinum. Contrast enhanced computed tomography scans (Figs. 2 and 3) revealed that the K-wire (green arrow) had migrated to the posterior mediastinum across the midline in the pre vertebral space posterior to the oesophagus and arch of aorta (red arrow). Because the sharp edge had already crossed the