Foreign Body Ingestion in Prisoners – The Belfast Experience

Deliberate ingestion of foreign bodies is common amongst prison inmates. The motives behind the ingestion are variable. As the only designated hospital in Northern Ireland treating acute surgical pathologies in the prison population, we reviewed our experience of foreign body ingestion between March 1998 and June 2007. Types of foreign objects, symptomatology, haematological analyses, radiological findings, operative intervention and complications were retrieved from case notes. A literature search was performed using Medline to correlate this clinical data with published evidence to produce therapeutic guidelines to assist the surgical multi-disciplinary team. Eleven prisoners presented with foreign body ingestion over the study period (M=8 and F=3, mean age: 28.1 years, range 21–48). Mean follow-up was 597 days (range 335–3325 days). Although the literature states that most foreign bodies usually pass spontaneously without the need for intervention, this study demonstrates a higher intervention rate of 36% within the Northern Irish prison population in comparison with other prisoners.