Rectal foreign body

Rectal foreign bodies are in general, large foreign items found in the rectum that can be assumed to have been inserted through the anus, rather than reaching the rectum via the mouth. Smaller, ingested foreign bodies, such as bones eaten with food, can sometimes be found stuck in the rectum upon x-ray.

Rectal foreign bodies, and amateur attempts to remove them, can result in perforation of the bowel, which is a life-threatening medical emergency. Medical literature covers examples of items retrieved from patients' rectums. Rectal foreign objects are also the subject of a number of urban legends.

References in the media

*The television show "ER" makes several references to this, such as when Dr. Benton holds up a lower abdominal x-ray with a flashlight lodged in it, noting, "The patient claimed that he fell on it while changing a lightbulb. Naked." Another episode has a medical student asking Dr. John Carter about the oddest object removed from a rectum. Dr. Carter responds that it was a bowling trophy.
*The television show "Scrubs" has made two references to this phenomenon. In "My Two Dads" Turk gives his then girlfriend Carla a pen from what he thinks is the lost and found box, only to discover that the hospital has no lost and found box, and he has mistakenly given his girlfriend a pen from the "Ass Box," comprised entirely of items removed from people's rectums. The second was when a patient came in with a lightbulb in his rectum, and Dr. Cox, Turk and the Janitor work together to figure out a way to remove the bulb without breaking it.
*The television show "House" also made two references to rectal foreign bodies. In the first, Gregory House is tending to a clinic patient who refuses to sit, from which he deduces the object's size and location. Upon learning the patient has an MP3 player in his rectum, House asks "Is it because of the size, the shape ... or the pounding bass-line?". The second reference comes when House is confronting his boss, Lisa Cuddy, explaining that the object he has won him second place in the "Weirdest Object Pulled From A Bodily Orifice" and that she does not want to know what the first place-getter was, but it does rhyme with "fucchini".
*On MTV's "Jackass", Ryan Dunn goes to the hospital with a HotWheel wrapped in a condom in his rectum.
*On an episode of Seinfeld, George Costanza's father falls on a small sculpture that Cosmo Kramer made, resulting in it being lodged in Mr. Costanza's rectum.
*In the first episode of the animated television comedy series South Park "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe" aired August 13 1997 Cartman believes he only dreamed of being abducted by space aliens. Inserted in his rectum was an expandable large satellite dish. In Season 6, episode 14 "The Death Camp of Tolerance" aired November 20 2002 Mr. Garrison helps introduce a gerbil into Mr. Slave's rectum as an elementary school class demonstration.

References

* Busch D B, Starling J R. Rectal foreign bodies: Case reports and a comprehensive review of the world's literature. "Surg" 1986; 100: 512-519. See also the 1995 Literature laureates of the Ig Nobel Prize.

External links

* Cynsa's [http://www.well.com/user/cynsa/newbutt.html Rectal Foreign Bodies page]
* [http://www.emedicine.com/emerg/topic933.htm eMedicine gastrointestinal emergency medicine]
* [http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/xmas98/mkinnon/mkinnon.html Medical Journal of Australia]
* [http://www.edu.rcsed.ac.uk/Case%20Presentations/CP22.htm Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh]
* British Dental Journal case report: [http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/bdj/journal/v191/n1/full/4801082a.html Don't forget your toothbrush!] (subscribers only - with useful bibliography)