Researchers in the United States of America have said that nearly 4,000 people are hospitalized with foreign objects in their rectum each year, according to a new study in The American Journal of Emergency Medicine — with sexual objects constituting the majority of the stuck items.
Researchers at the University of Rochester in New York were shocked by the “little epidemiologic information on this condition,” so they decided to analyze emergency reports from 2012 to 2021.
The study — said to be the first “nationally representative data” on rectal foreign bodies in the US — found 38,948 emergency department visits based on 885 cases in this period among party poopers older than 15.
Researchers scoured the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System for injuries involving the “pubic region” or “lower trunk,” with “an accompanying diagnosis of foreign body, puncture, or laceration.”
The system keeps a record of injuries related to consumer products, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services.
Of these reported cases, the average age of the patient visiting the emergency room was 43 years old.
Nearly 78% of the patients were male, and 40% of these patients required hospitalization.
Over half of the foreign bodies were sexual objects, which could be items like vibrators, anal beads, or other toys.
Balls and marbles, as well as drugs, were associated with a lower rate of hospitalization.
Researchers also found an increase in hospital visits for rectal foreign items over the period they studied, rising from 1.2 per 100,000 persons in 2012 to 1.9 in 2021.
“These data quantify a frequently encountered clinical presentation that has received little research focus,” the study’s authors wrote.
“These data suggest that there are distinct sex and age-specific differences in outcomes that may have an anatomic or behavioural basis.”
Just last year, a French senior citizen left doctors shell-shocked when he arrived with a World War I artillery shell lodged in his rectum, causing the evacuation of people from the hospital over bomb scare concerns.
