A live spiny eel, known in Bangladesh as baim, entered a Bangladeshi fisherman's body through the anus while he was fishing and perforated the wall of his large intestine. Surgeons removed the fish, about 26 inches long, in an emergency operation. Details of the 2024 case have now been published in the International Journal of Surgery Case Reports, Krishi Sangbad reports.
According to the case report, the 55-year-old fisherman kept the incident secret out of embarrassment, hoping the fish would come out on its own. He was later admitted to hospital with severe abdominal pain and a serious infection. X-rays and other scans showed a perforated bowel wall and signs of infection in the abdomen.
The eel had made a hole of about 5 centimetres, or 2 inches, in the patient's sigmoid colon, which could have caused life-threatening peritonitis. Timely surgery and a colostomy led to a quick recovery, and he was discharged four days later.
The case report was written by Bangladeshi doctors and researchers Mobin Ibne Mokbul, Soumik Roy, Amartya Narayan Roy and Mostafa Nawaz, with Amrita Shrestha of Nepal. They write that cases of a live animal such as an eel perforating the human bowel are extremely rare. A similar case occurred in Hong Kong in 2004, when a man inserted an eel himself in an attempt to relieve constipation.
The doctors advise clinicians to take patient histories with extra care, because embarrassment can lead patients to hide uncomfortable facts that, revealed in time, could save their lives. Unusual causes like this should be considered in patients with acute abdominal pain, the researchers say, adding that without quick diagnosis and surgery the risk of death would have been many times higher.
Photo: Agong1 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Source: Krishi Sangbad
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