Partial bowel obstruction in a 2-month-old child. A delayed diagnosis of anal abuse

Abstract

We present the case of an anal sexual abuse involving a 2-month-old boy, who was admitted to the Pediatric Surgery Unit of the University of Padua for low bowel obstruction. The infant had been already hospitalized for 3 days in a peripheral hospital and treated with daily rectal wash-outs for a fecaloma. Only after a careful interpretation of the plain abdominal radiograph, along with the performance of a rectoscopy and a laparotomy, a vegetable foreign body (about 3 cm in diameter and 7 cm in length) was discovered in the sigma. The morphology and dimensions of the foreign body, as well as its location, left no doubt about the etiology of the partial bowel obstruction, proving that it was clearly related to an anal sexual abuse.