An unusual pulmonary embolism after a fatal traumatic missile injury

Extract

While embolism following detachment of thrombi in veins of the pelvis and legs is not unusual. particularly in human medicine, other tissue and foreign body emboli in the lungs are much less common. Pulmonary embolism in man, for example. has been caused by the release of fat from traumatic injury sites, amniotic fluid into the maternal circulation following strong uterine contractions. air during intravenous fluid therapy. bone marrow after skeletal trauma, brain after severe head injury, liver following hepatic trauma or severe parenchymal necrosis. trophoblastic tissue during pregnancy, atheromatous material from severe arteriosclerosis, tumour metastases. cotton wool fibres by insertion of a needle into a vein and also. rarely. by vascular embolisation of a bullet(1)(2). In animals, pulmonary emboli are essentially derived from either thrombi, neoplasms or fat(3). Although skeletal muscle emboli have been experimentally induced in pulmonary arteries by parenteral injection of muscle tissue(4), this form of pulmonary embolism in clinical material has apparently not been described. This paper reports the finding of multiple skeletal muscle emboli in the lungs of a kangaroo after a fatal gunshot wound to the chest.