Breakage of Growth Hormone Needle in Subcutaneous Tissue of a Six-Year-Old Child's Buttock

Here, we present a six-year-old boy, whose growth hormone (GH) injection needle (34-gauge, 4 mm length) broke and was embedded in the subcutaneous tissue of his buttock. First, we immediately attempted to remove the needle under local anesthesia, however, we were unable to locate the needle due to its tiny size even though we used ultrasonography. Therefore, we used computed tomography (CT) guided marking to remove the needle under general anesthesia. We want to emphasize that patients receiving GH therapy should be aware of the possibility of needle breakage, and they should be taught proper injection techniques to prevent accidents.

Author(s): Shuichi Shimada, Asako Ichihara, Masatoshi Jinnin, Satoshi Fukushima, Hiroyo Mabe,Koichi Kawanaka and Hironobu Ihn

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