Incidentally Detected Lithopedion in an 87-Year-Old Lady: An Autopsy Case Report

A lithopedion is a rare complication of pregnancy that occurs when a fetus in an intraabdominal location dies, and it is too large to be reabsorbed by the body. The case was an 87-year-old woman, and she was transferred to the morgue department in April 2014 to determine the cause of death. During autopsy, an intraabdominally located calcified dead fetus and a 12-cm diameter calcified cyst in the right ovary were incidentally detected. It was aged 25 to 29 weeks (according to femur and humerus measurements) with a size of 12.5 × 8 × 5 cm and a weight of 227 g. According to investigation reports, her husband died in 1990, and she had 3 deliveries, the most recent of which was in 1946. Because the menopause age of the case was not exactly known, the retention time of the lithopedion was supposed to be 24 to 68 years according to the date of the most recent pregnancy and the date of her spouse's death. It is the first case that has been incidentally detected and identified during an autopsy in Turkey and also one of the oldest cases in the literature.