BACKGROUND 'Mules' or body packers are people who transport illegal drugs by packet ingestion into the gastrointestinal tract. These people are otherwise healthy and their management should maintain minimal morbidity. In this study, experience with body packers is presented and an algorithm for conservative and surgical management is provided. METHODS The clinical patient database for all bod...

Background: Sponge bezoars will absorb luminal contents, enlarge, and subsequently harden. There is significant potential for the development of intestinal obstruction and perforation. Methods: We report the case of an unsuspected polyurethane foam (PUF) sponge bezoar causing intestinal obstruction in an 8-year-old boy undergoing laparoscopy for an ingested lithium battery that was adherent to ...

Fecaloma is a mass of hardened feces being impacted mostly in rectum and sigmoid. The most common sites of the fecaloma is the sigmoid colon and the rectum. There are several causes of fecaloma and have been described in association with Hirschsprung's disease, psychiatric patients, Chagas disease, both inflammatory and neoplastic, and in patients suffering with chronic constipation. Up to now ...

This study was undertaken to compare between the human amniotic membrane (HAM) and intraperitoneal vitamin E (Vit E) and selenium in prevention of postoperative adhesions in dogs. A total of 18 apparently healthy adult Mongrel dogs were divided into three equal groups and the group (I) was treated with a sterile solution of 0.9% sodium chloride intraperitoneally as a control. Group II was treat...

We report the case of an elderly male who was presented with abdomen pain and diagnosed of small bowel obstruction caused by bezoar and review the literature. The initial presentation was epigastralgia with nausea and vomiting. Plain abdomen film showed diffuse dilated bowel loop. Both abdomen ultrasound and computed tomography all showed an intraluminal mass with bowel dilatation. Due to failu...

Sodium polystyrene sulfonate (Kayexalate) and calcium polystyrene sulfonate (CPS, Kalimate) are commonly used to reduce serum potassium. There were some published evidences of severe gastrointestinal complications from the administration of these agents such as colonic necrosis with or without perforation and acute obstruction. The authors reported a 52-year-old male patient being critically il...

OBJECTIVE To report experience with the treatment of complications of vinyl glove ingestion in mentally retarded patients with pica. DESIGN A retrospective case series. SETTING Two university-affiliated hospitals. PATIENTS Five mentally retarded patients, 4 with a history of pica, who were admitted for the management of complications resulting from the ingestion of vinyl gloves. MAIN OU...

1. Gorgone S, Di Pietro N, Rizzo AG, Melita G, Calabro G, Sano M, et al. Mechanical intestinal occlusion due to phytobezoars. G Chir 2003;24:239-42. 2. Aytac B; Cakar S. Bezoar: an uncommon cause of intestinal obstruction. Acta Gastroenterol Belg 2001;64:295-7. 3. Steinberg R, Schwarz M, Gelber E, Lerner A, Zer M. A rare case of colonic obstruction by ‘cherry tomato’ phytobezoar: a simple techn...

A 67-year-old Japanese man underwent enterotomy because of enterolith ileus. Component analysis by infrared spectroscopy revealed that the enterolith was composed of a high concentration of deoxycholic acid. We further analyzed and compared the ultrastructure of the enterolith and a commercially available powdered form of deoxycholic acid by means of scanning electron microscopy and energy disp...