Several years ago, Sheppe1 reported a case at the University of Virginia Hospital in which a bullet entered the abdomen and lodged in the wall of the inferior vena cava. During an attempt to remove it, the bullet escaped from the operator's fingers and disappeared. The rent in the vessel was closed. The patient reacted well from the operation, but died several days later from acute generalized peritonitis. Necropsy revealed the bullet firmly fixed near the apex of the right ventricle. Careful auscultation just before death failed to disclose any signs of cardiac disfunction.
During the World War many cases were reported in which foreign bodies, usually projectiles and shell fragments, entered a vein and later migrated to the heart. Tuffier2 described a projectile, followed radiologically, which entered the right lumbar region, gradually eroded into the lumen of the inferior vena cava and six weeks later reached the