Woven fabrics occasionally turn up inside human bodies, where they can be mistaken for tumors. This study looks for and at some of them, and gives them colorful names:
“Textiloma (Gossypiboma) Mimicking Recurrent Intracranial Tumor,” Teresa Ribalta, Ian E. McCutcheon, Antonio G. Neto, Deepali Gupta, A. J. Kumar, David A. Biddle, Lauren A. Langford, Janet M. Bruner, Norman E. Leeds, and Gregory N. Fuller, Archives of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, vol. 128, no. 7, 2004, pp. 749-758. The authors, at Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain and The University of Texas at Houston Medical School, report:
Resorbable substances used to achieve hemostasis during neurosurgical procedures [gelatin sponges, various forms of cotton and rayon-based hemostats (cottonoids and kites), etc] have been reported to cause symptomatic mass lesions, most commonly following intra-abdominal surgery…. Hemostat-associated mass lesions have been variously referred to as textilomas, gossypibomas, gauzomas, or muslinomas….
Cases in which a textiloma constituted the sole finding on repeat surgery for recurrent brain tumor, or was a clinically significant component of a radiologically identified mass lesion together with residual tumor, constituted the study set.
Results.—Five textilomas were identified and evaluated.
Here’s further detail from the study:
(Thanks to Ivan Oransky for bringing this to our attention.)