When doctors pull a long-implanted wire out of a heart device, the wire does not always leave cleanly. Scar tissue that grew around it can stay behind as a hollow, tube-shaped sleeve. Cardiologists call it a "lead ghost."
In a case from London, Ontario, one of those ghosts went somewhere doctors rarely see. As a 55-year-old man's failing lead was removed, a fibrous cast about 3.5 to 4 centimeters long, roughly 1.5 inches, broke loose from the right side of his heart and slipped through a small hole into the left side, where material can travel to the brain. Three days later, he was diagnosed with a stroke.
