The Cockroach Colonoscopy: An Urban Legend or Reality?

Was a cockroach really found in a woman's colon during a colonoscopy, or is the following another urban legend involving the creepy critters?

Before reading any further, let me foreworn you: the following story is not for the faint of heart.

We've all heard urban legend after urban legend involving bugs, particularly the creepy crawly cockroach. There's one urban legend about a girl that ingests cockroach eggs in her Taco Bell taco, only to have them start incubating in her salivary glands, and another about a woman who cuts her tongue while licking an envelope, only to have a live cockroach extracted from her tongue later on (as the story goes, there were cockroach eggs on the envelope). According to Snopes, both of these urban legends involving roaches are false, but the story below appears to be very real.

According to a Discover Magazine post, doctors got quite the shock during a 52-year-old woman's colonoscopy. The report begins by pointing out that the woman has a history of depression and was experiencing abdominal bloating before her colonoscopy. It then goes on to matter-of-factly state the following: "The procedure was uncomplicated with no gross mucosal pathology, however, an insect was found in the transverse colon." Upon further inspection, it was found that this insect was a seemingly fully intact cockroach. (If you've got a strong stomach, you can see the insect and read the Discover post here). Apparently the woman had a cockroach infestation at her home, and doctors hypothesized that she had ingested the roach with food.

This report goes on to state that only a few cases of finding insects in the gastrointestinal tract have been reported in medical literature, with only three existing reporting insects in the colon (this is the first report of a cockroach). Other insects reported being found by an endoscope include ants, wasps, lady-birds, bees, and yellow-jackets.

But how did the cockroach end up in the woman's colon fully intact after being exposed to her stomach acid? According to the report above, the exoskeleton of the roach is probably resistant to stomach acid, which makes sense, since roaches can survive a nuclear apocalypse, right? (Well, at least the Mythbusters found the radiation part of this urban legend plausible.) The medical report doesn't mention if the cockroach was found dead or alive, but after going through the prep procedure for a colonoscopy, one does have to wonder how it managed to stay in the woman's colon. Some comments on the Discovery article call the finding suspicious, and one commenter even ponders over the possibility that the roach might have been on the equipment used to perform the colonoscopy. Whatever the case, the finding definitely could not have helped the woman's depression.

Sorry if this story grossed you out, but it was just too fascinating not to share (and don't be surprised if you see a bug make an appearance in an unsavory place on "House" sometime in the future).

SOURCES:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2011/01/03/ncbi-rofl-an-unusual-finding-during-screening-colonoscopy-a-cockroach/
http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/mythbusters/db/animals/cockroaches-survive-nuclear-explosion.html
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/food/tacobell.asp
https://www.thieme-connect.com/ejournals/pdf/endoscopy/doi/10.1055/s-0030-1255712.pdf