Endoscopic removal of a dental prosthesis in the hepatic flexure of the colon.

The diagnosis of impacted foreign body in the colon is usually delayed until the complications such as perforation or abscess formation occur. Here we describe a patient who presented with diffuse abdominal pain due to the impaction of a dental prosthesis in the hepatic flexure of the colon. The dental prosthesis, which was inadvertently swallowed, was successfully removed under colonoscopy. Unexplained abdominal pain should alert the clinician to the possibility of foreign body ingestion and further therapeutic colonoscopy may replace or lessen the need for surgical procedures to extract foreign bodies from the colon.