Uneventful 25-year course of an intracardiac intravenous catheter fragment in the right heart.

We describe a patient with an intracardiac intravenous catheter fragment in the right heart that was found during fluoroscopy. The catheter fragment had broken off from an intravenous catheter inserted 25 years previously when the patient was admitted after a road accident. There were no complications during these years. The fragment was removed during coronary bypass surgery. Other cases of intracardiac foreign bodies have been described, some causing complications even after many years. Uninfected, these can be removed easily with local interventional techniques. Removal of an infected foreign body per cardiotomy has a much higher mortality risk.