[Surgical treatment of needles in intracardiac cavity and chest wall--a case report and the review of cases removed under open-heart surgery in Japan].

A 36-year-old woman under the treatment for neurosis stuck five sewing needles into her left anterior chest wall for the purpose of suicide. She was hospitalized with complaints of anterior chest pain and low-grade fever. Chest roentgenogram and computed tomogram showed two needles in the cardiac cavity and three needles in the chest wall. Following extraction of three needles in the chest wall, we removed two needles from the left and the right ventricular cavities under extracorporeal circulation. Preoperative and intraoperative two-dimensional echocardiography was useful for confirming the location of needles.