A rare tumour blocked the passage of 88 cocaine-filled capsules after a 47-year-old drug smuggler ingested them.

The patient presented to an ED in Igualada, Spain, a week after gulping down the capsules, telling doctors that only a few capsules had emerged despite taking laxatives.

He had abdominal pain, vomiting, tachycardia and abdominal distension, his doctors wrote in Radiology Case Reports.

A plain abdominal X-ray identified faint, rounded objects in the pelvis and a subsequent CT scan revealed numerous dense, rounded foreign bodies in distended sections of the jejunum and ileum, with only a few reaching the colon.