title: Endoscopic removal of a toothpick from the transverse colon.
abstract: We describe the case of a patient who presented with abdominal pain, weight loss, and night sweats of 8 wk duration due to the impalement of a toothpick in the transverse colon. The toothpick, which was inadvertently swallowed, was successfully removed during colonoscopy. Therapeutic colonoscopy has replaced or lessened to a significant degree the need for traditional open surgical procedures to extract foreign bodies from the colon. Unexplained abdominal pain and constitutional symptoms should alert the clinician to the possibility of a foreign body.
authors.affiliation: Medical Service, VA Medical Center, Memphis, Tennessee, USA.
authors.forename: K E
authors.initials: KE
authors.lastname: Monkemuller
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Patil
authors.forename: C R
authors.initials: CR
authors.lastname: Marino
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003106:Colon; D003113:Colonoscopy; D005547:Foreign Bodies / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male