A middle-aged traveler from China sought medical help for memory-related concerns. The clinical picture revealed that the symptoms were connected to an item lodged in a cerebral artery following an acupuncture procedure. The patient lived with memory issues for years, and the case drew attention to a rare complication linked to traditional acupuncture practices.
In a separate report, a 74-year-old patient from Sichuan province presented with progressive memory decline. Medical imaging identified a very small needle embedded within an artery of the brain, which had caused bleeding in the vessel wall known as a pseudoaneurysm. The medical history suggested acupuncture treatment for migraine headaches about two decades earlier, and clinicians suspected that the needle entered an artery behind the eye during that earlier intervention.
To retrieve the needle, surgeons removed a portion of the skull. A surgical microscope aided the delicate extraction, and a tiny metal clamp was used to close the damaged vein after the object was removed. The patient spent several days on a ventilator before progressing to recovery. Unfortunately, a complication during general anesthesia led to a secondary lung infection, and the patient survived for only a few weeks after the operation.
Experts noted that this case represented the first documented instance in the medical literature of a pseudoaneurysm arising from an acupuncture needle lodged in an intracranial artery.
A separate note described an elderly man who had an unrelated medical issue involving an object lodged in the urethra, illustrating the diverse and sometimes dangerous outcomes that can arise from unusual foreign body incidents.