Denture in the rectum: A case report

Abstract

Swallowed foreign bodies are uncommon during general anesthesia. In the majority of the cases, these foreign bodies are passed spontaneously and uneventfully and the minority requires endoscopic or surgical intervention. It is recommended that every removable prosthesis should be removed, labeled, and stored in a safe place preoperatively. Furthermore, if a foreign body was missing, proper notification should be done in the immediate postoperative period to enable early detection and avoid any complications that might result from its impaction in distal places. This paper reports a case of a swallowed denture during induction of anesthesia. The clinical and imaging findings are presented along with a review of the literature. A 53-year old woman was admitted for laparoscopic cholecystectomy. A week postoperatively, the patient reported a colicky lower abdominal pain increasing in severity. Lower quadrants deep tenderness was elicited by examination. A foreign body was detected within the proximal rectum by abdominal CT scan. The foreign body was the patient’s denture that was not removed earlier during the induction of anesthesia. Endoscopic foreign body removal was done by flexible sigmoidoscopy. This case report highlights the importance of removing any removable prosthesis before induction of anesthesia and reporting any missing prosthesis such as dentures in the immediate postoperative period.