Surgeons successfully remove piece of condom stuck in woman's appendix

Surgeons at a hospital in Cameroon successfully removed a large piece of a condom stuck in the appendix of a 26-year-old woman. The woman had complained of abdominal pain and was taken to hospital for treatment.

She was running fever and could not eat anything due to the pain. And after initial scans, she was diagnosed with appendicitis. She was advised to undergo surgery, during which, doctors cut open her appendix and were surprised to find a piece of condom inside it. This is the first time that such an incident has been reported.

"We blindly dissected the appendix and found an incomplete piece of rubbery material which was consistent with a condom," doctors described in the Journal of Medical Case Reports.

"Following [the] retrieval of the condom fragment from the patient's appendix and its presentation to the patient, she recalled having performed oral sex on her boyfriend two weeks prior to the onset of symptoms. She reported that the condom had loosened during the act and she accidentally ingested it.

"She however did not find it necessary to inform us [doctors] as she did not think it was the cause of her symptoms because she had passed out fragments of the ingested condom in her feces five days after ingestion."

Doctors further said that the condom may have torn into fragments as it moved through her gastrointestinal tract and a part of it got stuck in the organ. The appendix is located on the right side of the large intestine and sometimes alien objects can get stuck in it, cause pain and infection.