“Metallic taste”: search for the needle in a haystack (exemplary diagnostic measures and successful minimal invasive endoscopic treatment of a needle-like copper-containing foreign body in the gastric wall)

摘要

Chronic complaints and non-specific symptoms are always challenging for the selection of adequate diagnostic management and therapeutic decision making (eg, in uncharacteristic metallic taste). In this extraordinary, but exemplary case, the successful outcome for a 51-year-old woman with a chronic complaint of metallic taste (believed to be the first report in the literature as a cause of copper overload) is described. The patient underwent, after appropriate diagnostic measures, including MRI (detection), laboratory analysis of serum copper level (increased) and endoscopic ultrasound scan (localising the site), a minimal invasive treatment using endoscopic mucosectomy to remove a detected needle-like copper-containing foreign body from the intramural site of the gastric wall.