Massive subcutaneous emphysema after carbon dioxide mesotherapy

The authors report the observation of a 43-year-old woman with severe pain on her right upper abdominal quadrant. Differential diagnoses included acute cholecystitis, spontaneous pneumothorax, perforated appendicitis and a recidive of renal calculus. CT-scan showed a huge subdermal gas bubble along her right flank and anterior abdominal wall up to the submammary fold. Only at this point, the patient admitted to have undergone a carboxytherapy procedure on both thighs one day before onset of pain in a paramedical facility. As some of the injection trajects were still patent on CT-scan, she received prophylactic antibiotic coverage. Though there was a complete resorption of gas after 10 days, dysesthesias and muscle contracture persisted for 3 weeks. To the authors' knowledge this migration and coalescence of injected gas in a single bubble has not been previously reported.

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