Chapter of ‘Dr. House’ helps to save a patient

The German doctor Juergen Schaefer, found in the TV show “Dr. House” the response to the disease of a patient with heart problems and presenting symptoms such as fever, blindness, deafness and swelling of the lymph nodes.

The 55-year-old patient, had intrigued doctors, until he was attended by the fan of the American television series  Dr. House. “Five minutes after I knew what was happening”, said Schaefer, who works at the Center for not diagnosed diseases in Marburg, North of Frankfurt.

Schaefer often uses the TV series to teach medical students. When he saw the patient with heart failure, in may 2012, it had just prepared a lesson on the case of poisoning by cobalt submitted to the program.

The patient revealed that his problems began after an operation in which it was replaced a prosthesis of ceramic in his hip that was broken.

Schaefer said that some fragments of pottery were loose and leaked cobalt and chromium into the bloodstream. When replace the prosthesis, the patient’s heart improved and other symptoms were mitigated.