Self harm through foreign bodies ingestion – a rare cause of digestive perforation

Self-harm is a rare pathology, often seen in psychiatric patients but more frequently in the penitentiary environment. Of the many possible forms of self-harm, foreign bodies (FB) ingestion is by far the most usual in the Romanian prison environment. Our paper aims to present the diagnostic and therapeutic aspects arising as a consequence of digestive tract perforations consequent upon foreign bodies ingestion; we analyze a number of 45 cases which occurred over a 7-year period (2003-2010) in Rahova Penitentiary Hospital. We also examined the surgical particularities of case resolution. Abbreviations: FB – foreign bodies, EEA – end-to-end anastomosis