4,000 Americans hospitalized each year with a ‘foreign object’ lodged in their rectums

Nearly 4,000 Americans visit the emergency department every year after getting a ‘foreign object’ stuck in their rectums, official data suggests.

A first-of-its-kind analysis estimated that 38,948 Americans aged 15 and up went to hospitals with the embarrassing injury between 2012 and 2021, the equivalent of around 3,895 per year.

Men accounted for nearly eight in 10 cases, with the most common group being males in their 20s and early 30s, who made up a third of all ER visits.

Sex toys accounted for more than half of cases, while other objects found ranged from toy balls or marbles to bottles, bottle caps, cans, drugs and even stationary.

Researchers at the University of Rochester, New York, who did the study, said there has been a lack of hospital data on ‘retained rectal foreign bodies’ in the US.

They were compelled to carry out the research after data in the UK, Europe, Japan, and the Caribbean indicated that the injury was becoming more common globally.

Their work was published in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine last abut and was shared in Pub Med, the medical journal for the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The team used data from the US National Electronic Injury Surveillance System database, which keeps a record of all injuries linked to consumer products or recreational activities recorded at 100 ERs across the country.

They extracted all cases involving injury to the ‘pubic region’ or ‘lower trunk’ that involved a ‘foreign body’, and then screened out those among under-15s or where the injury was not linked to the rectum.

This gave a total of 886 cases of foreign objects stuck in rectums over the 10-year study.

They then used national population estimates to extrapolate for the entire population, giving a figure of 38,948 — or 4,000 per year.

Bottles, jars or bottle lids were the most common non-sexual devices found stuck in people’s rectums, they found, accounting for 10 percent of cases.

They were followed by drugs, five percent, and a ball or marble, three percent.

Other objects spotted were described as ‘writing implements’, or 2.3 percent, which may include pens, markers and crayons.

Some 20 percent of cases also involved ‘miscellaneous objects’. Details were not given on what these were, but in previous cases, this has involved lightbulbs, dumbbells and even a World War One artillery shell.

About half of the incidents were linked to sexual devices, such as sex toys.

By age group, those aged 20 to 24 were most likely to be admitted to wards with foreign objects in their rectums, followed by 25 to 29-year-olds and 20 to 34-year-olds.

About 77 percent of cases were recorded among men — or more than three-quarters of the total.

Scientists did not suggest why the objects had ended up in people’s anuses, but this has previously been linked to sexual pleasure or gratification.