Bullet Embolism

ABSTRACT

When a bullet hits the body, it generally follows a straight path, and there may or may not be an exit wound. Sometimes the bullet loses its kinetic energy within a blood vessel and thus it embolizes into the cardiovascular system, either in the systemic circulation or the pulmonary circulation and we call this phenomenon a "Bullet" embolism. A thirty-five years old man with a gun shot injury on his abdomen came to hospital. There was an entry site, but no exit site. According to his plain X-ray, there was no bullet in his abdomen. Instead, the bullet was located on the right ventricle of the heart. Because there was no injury on his diaphragm and heart, we concluded that the bullet got into a blood vessel and it ran through the venous system into the heart.