foreign bodies left behind inadvertently during prior surgery need to be removed because they are associated with important complications that have serious medical and legal consequences . an increasing familiarity with laparoscopic techniques has encouraged surgeons to use them for this purpose . a 30-year - old female patient came to our department with complaints of recurrent diffuse abdominal pain and vomiting of 4-years ' duration . she was investigated with repeated ultrasounds of the abdomen elsewhere for the same problem . on examination , she was found to have a small upper right paramedian scar . her abdomen was soft on palpation , with a vague firm mass in the right iliac fossa ( rif ) . in view of the above findings , a provisional diagnosis of rif mass with recurrent subacute intestinal obstruction was made . she was evaluated with blood investigations , abdominal ultrasound , and a computed tomography ( ct ) scan of the abdomen . to our surprise , the ct scan of the abdomen showed a 6-inch metallic object in the right lower quadrant of the abdomen ( figures 1 and 2 ) . six - inch metallic object : artery forceps in the right lower quadrant of abdomen . computed tomography scan of abdomen showing metallic object . as the patient had an upper right paramedian scar , we introduced the veress needle through the left hypochondrium and insufflated the abdomen with 3 liters of carbon dioxide . two accessory 5-mm ports were placed in the rif and suprapubic region . the omental mass was slowly dissected . as we were dissecting , the tip of the artery forceps was visualized , and using that as a guide , we continued the dissection . it was found that the forceps was traversing through a loop of the small bowel causing a through and through perforation ( figure 3 ) . due to space constraints within the peritoneal cavity , we decided to exteriorize the tip of the artery forceps through the rif port ( figure 4 ) . the rif incision was enlarged to 5 cm to enable exteriorization of the bowel and removal of the handle of the instrument . the muscles were divided along the line of the incision and the artery forceps along with the portion of the small bowel was exteriorized . the damaged small bowel along with the forceps was resected , and an endto - end anastomosis was performed . the patient 's postoperative stay was uneventful , and she was discharged on the fifth postoperative day . foreign bodies identified postoperatively are becoming a rarity due to increased precaution taken during surgery and underreporting of such cases . but when encountered , they need to be removed because the medical and legal implications are considerable . in this modern age when specialized investigations are being increasingly done for evaluation of patients , a simple investigation like a plain x - ray of the abdomen is still a valuable tool as this case report shows . until recently , a large incision was required based on the location and size of the object . laparoscopic surgery is a viable alternative to open surgery for removal of forgotten surgical objects . in the hands of experienced laparoscopic surgeons ,
numerous foreign bodies , such as surgical gauze , pads and instruments , and other items , have been left behind in the abdominal cavity during open surgeries . 
 these have been traditionally removed at redo open surgeries . 
 here we describe a case of an artery forceps left behind at a previous surgery ( open cholecystectomy and appendicectomy ) performed 5 years earlier that was removed by laparoscopy .