Beer bottle removed from man's colon

Doctors in central Kenya have successfully removed an empty half-litre beer bottle from a man's colon, but how it got there remains a mystery.

The 26-centimetre bottle was removed on Monday from the colon of the 33-year-old man after two operations in a Kiambu District Hospital, about 20 kilometres from the capital.

"The first operation was not successful, forcing us to perform the a second one, which went fine," said the hospital's administrator Patrick Okoth.

Although the man, whose identity was not disclosed, said he had pushed the bottle through his rectum, Okoth said it was nearly impossible for the man to have done that by himself.

"It would have been too painful. He would have had to use a whole length of his arm," Okoth said, adding that the bottle inflicted "no damage at all" in the man's internal organs.

Instead, Okoth said the man could have been assaulted by other people but that it was to embarrassing for him accept that. Hospital authorities refused to allow the patient to be interviewed, citing patient-doctor confidentiality.