The Ninh Thuan Province General Hospital in south-central Vietnam carried out a surgery to remove a stent that had been left for four years in an 80-year-old woman’s ureter last week.

A representative of the hospital said on Tuesday that the patient, named Tr. T. D., is being monitored carefully. Her health condition is stable.

The elderly woman was taken to the hospital on Wednesday last week in a state of prolonged fever, backache, septic shock, hypotension, and cardiac arrhythmia.

After she underwent a CT scan, doctors discovered a forgotten stent inside her left ureter, while the two heads of the stent were covered with nephroliths. She was suffering from hydronephrosis as well.

One of her family members said that D. experienced a surgery in which a stent was placed in her left ureter in 2019, but she did not come back to hospital for a follow-up examination.

As such, the stent remained in her ureter.

A silicon stent must be removed from a patient’s ureter a maximum of one year after it is placed in the patient’s body, according to the representative of the Ninh Thuan Province General Hospital.

If a stent remains in patients’ ureters for a long time, nephroliths will form and cling to the tube, affecting their health.

Patients who have their ureters placed with a stent are advised to follow doctors’ instructions and undergo scheduled medical re-examinations.

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