missing information that may be important during therapy. For the same reason, patients may not visit a doctor until very late. Trusting and sensitive care for the ashamed and uncomfortable patients is paramount for a successful therapy and may be life-saving. Usually, several radiological images are recorded in order to pinpoint the precise place and depth of the foreign body. This is usually done by x-ray. Foreign bodies made from low-contrast material (e.g. plastics) may necessitate medical ultrasound or a CT scan. Magnetic resonance imaging is contraindicated, especially if the foreign body is unknown. Foreign rectal bodies may penetrate deep into the colon, in certain circumstances up to the right colic flexure. An endoscopy, which may also be of use during therapy, facilitates the identification and localisation of the object inside the rectum. Information about the foreign body obtained in those ways are of high importance during therapy, as a perforation of the rectum or the anus is to be absolutely avoided. Treatment The therapeutic measures to remove the foreign body can be as diverse as the objects inside the rectum. In many instances, the foreign bodies consist of fragile materials, such as glass. Most patients wait for several hours or even days until they visit a doctor. Before they do, they often repeatedly try to remove the object themselves or by a layperson. This often worsens the situation for a successful extraction. In most cases, the foreign body can be removed endoscopically. Vibrators, for example, can be often removed using a large sling usually used to remove polyps during coloscopy. A flexible endoscope can be of no help with large and jammed objects. It may be preferable to use rigid tools in those cases. There have been several cases where instruments used in child birth have proven their worth for the removal of those foreign bodies, such as the forceps and suction cups. Wooden objects have been retrieved with corkscrews and drinking glasses after filling them with plaster. A spoon can be used as an "anchor" by leaving it inside the glass during the plaster filling, removing it together with the glass. Light bulbs are encased in a gauze shroud, shattered inside the rectum and extracted. There have been successful cases using argon-plasma coagulation. The object in question was a green apple wrapped in cellophane inside the rectum of a 44-year-old patient. The argon-beam coagulation shrunk the apple by