Foreign body in the myocardium

We presented a 13 years and 10 months-old-boy seriously wounded after a bomb exploded in his hands, with a foreign body in the heart. It was a fragment of bomb that penetrated through the chest wall and pericardium and pierced into the apical part of the myocardium. Diagnosis was established by ECHO, X ray and CT scan. In the apical part of the LV myocardium close to the interventricular septum, we found by ECHO a foreign body with a metal echo, size 3x 9 mm. It had straight edges and was long-shaped almost completely embedded in the myocardium. In the apical pericardial space there were small effusions of app. 4-5 mm. There were no other signs of myocardial injuries (pericardial tamponade, injury of septum, valves or coronary arteries). Considering it was a small foreign body with straight edges completely embedded in the myocardium, we decided not to intervene, but just follow the patient. We monitored this boy for 5 years. All this time the cardiac clinical finding was normal, ECHO, X ray and CT scan unchanged. There were no complications such as arrhythmia, infections, embolisation or thrombosis.