Colorectal foreign bodies. Management update.

A nine-year experience with 55 colorectal foreign bodies extracted from 51 patients is presented. Adherence to a management protocol according to the classification of the level of the foreign bodies within the rectum is emphasized. The therapeutic principles of pre-extraction biplane abdominal roentgenograms, appropriate anesthesia for adequate sphincter relaxation, transanal extraction under direct vision whenever possible, proctosigmoidoscopy and inpatient observation following removal of the foreign body have resulted in no morbidity or mortality in this series.