Anyone who has been through surgery knows recovery comes with some discomfort. But for one woman in Italy, the pain that followed her cosmetic procedure was not part of the healing process. It was a pair of scissors.
A 53-year-old woman underwent an abdominoplasty, commonly known as a tummy tuck, at a private clinic in Naples, Italy, on October 25, 2025. As People reported, she began experiencing sharp pain, unusual discomfort, and fainting episodes almost immediately after she was discharged. It would take seven months and a second medical opinion before anyone figured out why.
According to Italian newspaper L’Unione Sarda, the woman called an emergency number after losing consciousness and was advised to go to the hospital. Her surgeon believed she was dealing with ordinary post-surgical symptoms and ordered tests, which showed an infection. He prescribed antibiotics.
The pain never went away.
In May, seven months after the operation, she went to a different diagnostic center for further evaluation. That is where imaging revealed a pair of surgical scissors inside her abdomen, left behind during the original procedure.
What happened next raised nearly as many questions as the scissors themselves. According to a police complaint obtained by Italian outlet Cronache della Campania, the diagnostic center did not inform the patient first. Staff allegedly contacted the surgeon who performed the original operation instead. The surgeon then reached out to his former patient and recommended she return for emergency surgery to have the scissors removed. She declined to go back to him and filed a police complaint. The scissors were reportedly still set to be removed, just not by the doctor accused of leaving them there.
Retained surgical items are a well-documented problem in medicine, and the legal picture is not kind to surgeons. A research study published on PubMed examined cases where surgical materials were left inside patients, a condition known as gossypiboma or textiloma when the item is gauze or a sponge. “Gossypiboma, in the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur, proves that the surgeon is negligent,” the study noted. Res ipsa loquitur translates to “the thing speaks for itself,” and it is hard to imagine a clearer example than a scan showing scissors where they should not be.
The study’s authors put the burden squarely on the operating room. “The surgeon should always remain vigilant and cautious, as the damage done once is done forever. Hence, prevention always remains better than cure,” they concluded.
For the woman in Naples, the complaint is now in the hands of authorities. Beyond the scissors, the case has drawn attention to how the discovery was handled, as the patient was reportedly the last person told what was inside her own body.
