Retained pigtail catheter in the pericardium extracted by uniportal video-assisted thoracic surgery

Pericardial foreign bodies (FB) are exceptionally rare. Complications of pericardial foreign bodies include infections, pericardial effusion, arrhythmias, myocardial perforation, and constrictive pericarditis leading to heart failure. We demonstrate a case in which a pigtail catheter, which was inserted for pericardial effusion, was not completely removed, resulting in retained FB. We retrieved the FB using uniportal video-assisted thoracic surgery (u-VATS) demonstrating its feasibility. The learning point from this case was that it should be confirmed that the whole pigtail catheter had been removed by post-removal chest radiograph and an echocardiogram.