It is every patient’s nightmare – coming out of an operation to find the surgeon has left a sponge or a surgical implement inside your body.
Now researchers in the US have shown that radio-frequency ID tags like those used to combat theft from retail stores could prevent patients being sewn up with items still inside.
Such incidents are rare, occurring in about 1 in every 10,000 operations involving an open body cavity, but they can have severe consequences, both for patients who may develop infections, and for surgeons who can be sued for large sums of money.
Alex Macario,…
