A 43-year-old male came to the hospital with pain in his rectum. Further history revealed that there had been insertion of a foreign body. The CAT scan (CT scan) is above – do you see the abnormality?
See below for the answer!
The patient inserted a Bic ballpoint pen into his rectum! Cap-less, I might add. You can see the metallic ballpoint tip very well on the magnified image (see below):
This happens more frequently then you might think! One hospital looked at a number of their “foreign body” cases and found some interesting objects. Out of 15 patients that they looked at they found an impulse body spray can (4 patients), a bottle (4 patients), a dildo (2 patient), an eggplant (1 patient), a brush (1 patient), a tea glass (1 patient), a ball point pen (1 patient) and a wishbone (1 patient). In most cases (12 out of 15) the objects were removed transanally by anal dilatation under general anesthesia. The other patients required laparotomy, a surgical procedure. Interestingly as well, all15 patients were male!
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