Calcutta: An 11-year-old boy was operated on at a city hospital last month to remove two plastic cables from his bladder.

The boy from Burdwan bleeded while urinating and his parents took him to a doctor in the area who prescribed antibiotics, presuming an infection in the urinary tract.

When there was no relief, the parents brought him to Fortis Hospital and Kidney Institute in the city.

An ultrasonography revealed a foreign structure within the bladder.

An X-ray of the kidney, ureter and bladder revealed a large tube within the urinary tract, Puskar Chowdhury, a paediatric urologist at the hospital, said.

During a counselling session, the boy apparently said he had inserted a cable in the urethra through the penile opening out of curiosity. He had inserted one more cable to retrieve the first.

He was embarrassed and didn't tell his parents what happened but complained of pain and blood while urinating.

A cystoscopy revealed a 5 inch cable in the urethra, which was removed through an endoscopic surgery. But the other cable, about 35 inch, appeared twisted inside the bladder. It had to be straightened before being removed without further damage to the area, Chowdhury who operated on him said.

"Retrieving the longer cable from the urethra was a challenge. Had the endoscopic surgery failed, we would have had to cut open the bladder," he said. The boy had a catheter for a week. He was able to urinate normally after the catheter was removed, Chowdhury said.

Various doctors Metro spoke to said this wasn't an isolated incident.

Often, a child is embarrassed to admit he/she has inserted a foreign object inside the body. Such foreign objects can lead to infection, stones and even life-threatening sepsis, doctors said.

The key is diagnosis at the earliest. Foreign objects are inserted in the genito-urinary tract out of sexual curiosity, Chowdhury said.

"Some children tend to put objects inside multiple orifices, from nostrils to anus," Apurba Ghosh, director, Institute of Child Health, said.

"Unless the objects get stuck, nobody gets to know. A few months ago, a 4-year-old girl had inserted a small object inside her vaginal orifice. It was removed at the institute," Ghosh said.

Small foreign objects can be removed through endoscopic surgery but larger objects might require open surgeries, Chowdhury said.