[Foreign bodies in urinary bladder: a clinical case]

A pencil in the urinary bladder is an unusual problem for urologists. We present a case in a 44-year-old female with an eyeliner pencil self-introduced into the urethra.

The patient was referred to us with a recent history of "ingestion of foreign body". The clinical presentation, radiologic data, and treatment were reported.

The patient had a pencil placed sideways in the urinary bladder, with focal perforation of the left wall. A cystoscopy was performed and the pencil was removed at the same time by using grasping forceps and hydraulic overdistention of the urinary bladder.

Bladder is the most common location of foreign bodies of the urogenital tract, almost always due to self-insertion into the urethra for the purpose of masturbation or as a result of non-inhibited or altered behavior due to psychiatric diseases, or to the influence of drugs. Most patients were too ashamed to admit they had inserted or applied any object and usually presented when a complication had occurred such as difficulty in voiding, hematuria, pain or swelling, extravasations or abscess formation. The treatment can be endoscopic, and it depends on the type of the foreign object and the operator's skills.