{"id":5436,"date":"2026-03-13T13:36:49","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T11:36:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/?p=5436"},"modified":"2026-03-13T13:38:48","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T11:38:48","slug":"cvja-2025-103","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/cvja-2025-103\/","title":{"rendered":"Thrombus in the Common Carotid Artery Caused by Penetrating Injury with a Bull Horn: A Case Report"},"content":{"rendered":"    <div id=\"article\">                                                                                                                        \r\n        <div id=\"title-container\">                                                                                                    \r\n        <div id=\"authors-title\">                                                                                                            \r\n        <!--Aurthors under Title-->                                                                                                            \r\n            \r\n\u00c7eber Mehmet, Karaman Kayhan\r\n<\/div>        \r\n<\/div>                                                                                                                            \r\n            <div id=\"copyright\">\r\n        <strong>Copyright:<\/strong> Clinics Cardive Publishing (Pty) Ltd. publisher\r\n        of Cardiovascular Journal of Africa.<\/div>\r\n    <div style=\"clear: both;\"><\/div>                                                                                                                                \r\n        <div id=\"article-abstract\">                                                                                                            \r\n            <div id=\"abstract-title\">                                                                                                        \r\n                    Abstract                                                                                                                \r\n                <\/div>                                                                                                                        \r\n                                                                                                                                \r\n            <div id=\"abstract-content\">                                                                                                        \r\n            <!--Content of Abstract Article-->                                                                                                \r\n            <!--<strong>\"Abstract titles\":<\/strong>-->                                                                                        \r\n            <!--<br\/> at the end of each section!!-->                                                                                        \r\n                                                                                                                                                     \r\nA 40-year-old man was brought to the emergency department after being gored in the neck by a bull. His general condition and vital signs were stable. No neurological deficit was detected. There was no significant bleeding in the wound area. The patient\u2019s left carotid pulse could be palpated. Despite the presence of mild symptoms, computed tomography angiography (CTA), followed by Doppler ultrasound (US), was used for further evaluation. CTA revealed an intimal tear and a filling defect consistent with thrombus in the lumen of the distal part of the left common carotid artery (CCA). US demonstrated that the bull\u2019s horn caused intimal tears in both the anterior and posterior walls, with the thrombus originating from the posterior wall. Given the findings, surgical exploration was preferred due to the risk of complications related to the endovascular approach. Neck exploration confirmed the findings, revealing an approximately 2 cm haematoma on the distal segment of the left CCA, indicative of a circumferential intimal tear that caused thrombus formation within the lumen. An arteriotomy was performed at the haematoma site, and a clot approximately 15 mm in length was removed. After excision of the circular intimal tear, an end-to-end repair was performed using a synthetic vascular graft. The patient was discharged on postoperative day 5. Imaging methods such as Doppler US and CTA should be used to ensure early diagnosis and appropriate treatment of both blunt and penetrating trauma. Patients not evaluated with these imaging modalities may later present with stroke, haematoma, or pseudoaneurysm.\r\n\r\n\r\n<br \/>    \r\n                                                                                                        \r\n\r\n                                                                                                                                                \r\n            <\/div>                                                                                                                            \r\n        <\/div>                                                                                                                                    \r\n              <br \/>                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       \r\n                                                                                                                                                \r\n    <div id=\"publish-info\">                                                                                                                    \r\n                                                                                                                                \r\n    <strong>Submitted:<\/strong> October 28, 2025; <!--Month day, year; -->    \r\n    <strong>Accepted:<\/strong> November 14, 2025; <!--Month day, year; -->                                                                            \r\n    <strong>Published:<\/strong> March 13, 2026<!--Month day, year; -->                                                                                                                            <br \/>                                                            \r\n        <em>Cardiovasc J Afr 2025; <b>37<\/b>: 120-123<!--pg no. till pg no. \"eg. 4-7\"--><\/em>\r\n        <br \/><strong>Volume 37, Issue 1<\/strong> <br \/>                                                                            \r\n        <\/div>                                                                                                                            \r\n                                                                                                                                        \r\n    <div id=\"DOI\">                                                                                                                    \r\n            DOI Citation Reference: dx.doi.org\/10.5830\/CVJA-2025-103<!--DOI number-->                                                                \r\n        <\/div>                                                                                                                            \r\n                \r\n                <div id=\"author-affiliation\">                                                                                                \r\n\r\n\r\n<strong>Tokat Gaziosmanpa\u015fa University Faculty of Medicine, Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Tokat, T\u00fcrkiye\r\n<\/strong>    <br \/>                                                                            \r\n\u00c7eber Mehmet\r\n\r\n<br \/><br \/>       \r\n\r\n<strong>Tokat Gaziosmanpa\u015fa University Faculty of Medicine, Department of Cardiology, Tokat, T\u00fcrkiye\r\n<\/strong>    <br \/>                                                                            \r\nKaraman Kayhan\r\n\r\n<br \/><br \/>    \r\n\r\n                [soshsc hide=\"logged\"]\r\n                <strong>You need to be <a style=\"color: #c80c44;\" href=\"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/member-login\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">logged in to view and download<\/a> the full text PDF version. <a style=\"color: #c80c44;\" href=\"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/register\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Register for a free account?<\/a><\/strong> <br \/><br \/>[\/soshsc]\r\n                \r\n                \r\n                \r\n                <\/div>\r\n    \r\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A 40-year-old man was brought to the emergency department after being gored in the neck by a bull. His general condition and vital signs were stable. No neurological deficit was detected. There was no significant bleeding in the wound area. The patient\u2019s left carotid pulse could be palpated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,109],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-case-reports","category-volume-37-issue-1"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Thrombus in the Common Carotid Artery Caused by Penetrating Injury with a Bull Horn: A Case Report - Cardiovascular Journal of Africa<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A 40-year-old man was brought to the emergency department after being gored in the neck by a bull. His general condition and vital signs were stable. No neurological deficit was detected. There was no significant bleeding in the wound area. The patient\u2019s left carotid pulse could be palpated.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/cvja-2025-103\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Thrombus in the Common Carotid Artery Caused by Penetrating Injury with a Bull Horn: A Case Report - Cardiovascular Journal of Africa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A 40-year-old man was brought to the emergency department after being gored in the neck by a bull. His general condition and vital signs were stable. No neurological deficit was detected. There was no significant bleeding in the wound area. The patient\u2019s left carotid pulse could be palpated.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/cvja-2025-103\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Cardiovascular Journal of Africa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-03-13T11:36:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-03-13T11:38:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jaco Moolman\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jaco Moolman\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/cvja-2025-103\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/cvja-2025-103\/\",\"name\":\"Thrombus in the Common Carotid Artery Caused by Penetrating Injury with a Bull Horn: A Case Report - Cardiovascular Journal of Africa\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2026-03-13T11:36:49+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-03-13T11:38:48+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/#\/schema\/person\/6bf8a30a039e93fd8112db707affb920\"},\"description\":\"A 40-year-old man was brought to the emergency department after being gored in the neck by a bull. His general condition and vital signs were stable. No neurological deficit was detected. There was no significant bleeding in the wound area. The patient\u2019s left carotid pulse could be palpated.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/cvja-2025-103\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/cvja-2025-103\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/cvja-2025-103\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Thrombus in the Common Carotid Artery Caused by Penetrating Injury with a Bull Horn: A Case Report\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/\",\"name\":\"Cardiovascular Journal of Africa\",\"description\":\"The Cardiovascular Journal of Africa is a peer-reviewed medical journal publishing leading research in cardiovascular health across Africa since 1990\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/#\/schema\/person\/6bf8a30a039e93fd8112db707affb920\",\"name\":\"Jaco Moolman\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/454c6719ed785bfd40e036ca3c3ac3347c56b4a99902df8beb62d882b1e6967f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/454c6719ed785bfd40e036ca3c3ac3347c56b4a99902df8beb62d882b1e6967f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Jaco Moolman\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/author\/jacodesignconnection-co-za\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Thrombus in the Common Carotid Artery Caused by Penetrating Injury with a Bull Horn: A Case Report - Cardiovascular Journal of Africa","description":"A 40-year-old man was brought to the emergency department after being gored in the neck by a bull. His general condition and vital signs were stable. No neurological deficit was detected. There was no significant bleeding in the wound area. The patient\u2019s left carotid pulse could be palpated.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/cvja-2025-103\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Thrombus in the Common Carotid Artery Caused by Penetrating Injury with a Bull Horn: A Case Report - Cardiovascular Journal of Africa","og_description":"A 40-year-old man was brought to the emergency department after being gored in the neck by a bull. His general condition and vital signs were stable. No neurological deficit was detected. There was no significant bleeding in the wound area. The patient\u2019s left carotid pulse could be palpated.","og_url":"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/cvja-2025-103\/","og_site_name":"Cardiovascular Journal of Africa","article_published_time":"2026-03-13T11:36:49+00:00","article_modified_time":"2026-03-13T11:38:48+00:00","author":"Jaco Moolman","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Jaco Moolman","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/cvja-2025-103\/","url":"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/cvja-2025-103\/","name":"Thrombus in the Common Carotid Artery Caused by Penetrating Injury with a Bull Horn: A Case Report - Cardiovascular Journal of Africa","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/#website"},"datePublished":"2026-03-13T11:36:49+00:00","dateModified":"2026-03-13T11:38:48+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/#\/schema\/person\/6bf8a30a039e93fd8112db707affb920"},"description":"A 40-year-old man was brought to the emergency department after being gored in the neck by a bull. His general condition and vital signs were stable. No neurological deficit was detected. There was no significant bleeding in the wound area. The patient\u2019s left carotid pulse could be palpated.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/cvja-2025-103\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/cvja-2025-103\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/cvja-2025-103\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Thrombus in the Common Carotid Artery Caused by Penetrating Injury with a Bull Horn: A Case Report"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/#website","url":"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/","name":"Cardiovascular Journal of Africa","description":"The Cardiovascular Journal of Africa is a peer-reviewed medical journal publishing leading research in cardiovascular health across Africa since 1990","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/#\/schema\/person\/6bf8a30a039e93fd8112db707affb920","name":"Jaco Moolman","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/454c6719ed785bfd40e036ca3c3ac3347c56b4a99902df8beb62d882b1e6967f?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/454c6719ed785bfd40e036ca3c3ac3347c56b4a99902df8beb62d882b1e6967f?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Jaco Moolman"},"url":"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/author\/jacodesignconnection-co-za\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5436"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5439,"href":"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5436\/revisions\/5439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvja.co.za\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}