Cement embolism during a kyphoplasty.

Figure 1: Postoperative lateral chest X-ray showing the excellent alignment following short fixation, a chest tube to drain a pleural effusion, the cement leakage (arrow) and the vertebral reinforcement material (asterisk). The mechanism of the embolism was probably a vascular entry of cement during high pressure inflation to get the compressed vertebral separated. Figure 2: CT image: we can observe a right pleural effusion with a filiform foreign body into the azygos vein, pulmonary artery and its segmentary branch. The vascular course of the embolized material was azygos vein, superior vena cava, right atrium, right ventricle and right pulmonary artery.