A 15-year-old teenager undergoes surgery after inserting a USB cable into the penis

Published 9/17/2021 7:12 PM / Updated 9/17/2021 7:15 PM

A 15-year-old teenager underwent surgery after a USB cable was inserted into his penis. The case took place in London, United Kingdom, and was published in a scholarly article published in revista “Urology Case Reports”.

The young man, who has not been named, told doctors that he inserted a USB cable used to charge cell phones into the urethra to measure the length of the penis. When he realized he had trapped the cable at the tip, he tried to remove it manually, but it ended up making the situation worse and trapping the ends of the object in the urethra.

The teen went with his family to the nearest hospital, but attempts at manual or endoscopic removal were not effective due to a knot in the USB cable.

He was then referred to University College London Hospital, where he has specialist treatment and urology. Doctors need to perform a penile-scrotal urethrotomy, in which a cut is made between the patient’s genitals and the anus. The cord was cut and removed through the external urethral opening.

The teen was discharged from the hospital the day after the surgery. He had to use a suprapubic catheter to drain urine for two weeks. According to the doctors, the young man will not have sequelae.

According to the scientific article published in Urology Case Reports, the young man had no mental problems, and conditions like this are more common than one might think. “Experimentation and sexual gratification are major causes of retention of foreign bodies in patients’ urethra and bladder,” says an excerpt from the study.