Health officials investigate death of 60-year-old male patient after liver biopsy at Hong Kong hospital
- Man, who suffered from heavy bleeding after procedure, had been on anticoagulation medication
A 60-year-old man bled heavily and died in Princess Margaret Hospital after a procedure to extract liver tissue, prompting an investigation by Hong Kong medical officials.
The Hospital Authority is looking into whether an anticoagulation medication that was supposed to be withheld before the procedure “under normal circumstances” was related to the bleeding.
The patient attended the emergency unit at North Lantau Hospital for shortness of breath on November 27. He was transferred to the medical ward of Princess Margaret Hospital in Kwai Chung the same night, an authority spokesman said.
The next day, he was transferred to the intensive care unit for respiratory failure.
The patient was diagnosed with necrotising pneumonia due to community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
On January 3, computed tomography (CT) scanning showed that he had pneumothorax, multiple early liver abscesses and deep vein thrombosis – formation of a blood clot in a deep vein. Daily injection of enoxaparin, a commonly used anticoagulant, was started.