While toothaches aren't often considered fatal, a woman died in the hospital after going there due to her toothache. The woman, a 44-year-old from Italy, died just hours after she received a CT scan to find the cause of the pain.
Woman Dies in Hospital
According to News Week, the woman, Federica Borrometi, reportedly suffered from toothache, which prompted her to go to the hospital. She went to the Giovanni Paolo II hospital in Ragusa, Naples, on July 4 to get her tooth checked.
The woman then received a CT scan so the doctors could determine the reason for her pain, according to the regional newspaper L'Unione Sarda. Just hours after receiving the CT scan, she reportedly died.
Following her molar abscess, she fell into anaphylactic shock, and so far, the cause behind this remains unclear. However, News Week reports that a theory for her death would've been an allergic reaction.
Borrometti could've experienced an allergic reaction from the contrast medium used for the CT scan. The contrast medium was applied to enhance the CT scan's features.
Anaphylactic Shock
Anaphylactic shock, or anaphylaxis, is a sudden, life-threatening allergic reaction. Anaphylaxis symptoms can potentially escalate in just a matter of seconds.
Medicine Plus describes this as a whole-body allergic reaction caused by an allergen. Examples of allergens include bee venom or other chemicals that an individual is allergic to.
The report describes this reaction as happening quickly after exposure. It can result in difficulties in breathing, from airway constrictions, abdominal pains, or other forms of gastrointestinal problems, and blood pressure drops, spikes, and heart palpitations.
News Week reports how insect bites can cause an allergic reaction, and in rare cases, this can also come from radiographic contrast media. This was the suggested theory behind the death of Borrometi.
How Common Is This Occurrence
The journal Radiology published the study in 2019 wherein the researcher observed 196,081 patients to find how common CT contrast medium reactions were. Their study focused specifically on contrast medium with iodine.
They found that only 1433 out of the 196,081 participants experienced any form of hypersensitivity. Out of that percentage, only 16.8% of them experienced reactions that were moderate to severe.
Although uncommon in nature, reactions to CT contrast medium could have critical effects on a small population. This could result in a patient's death should they not get medical attention immediately.
So far, the public is awaiting an autopsy to confirm whether Borrometi's death was indeed the cause of a reaction to the CT contrast medium. So far, the cause of death being anaphylaxis remains just a hypothesis and has yet to be challenged by the results.
The occurrence remains a shock, especially to others on social media, where her story met tributes.
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