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Selim Sassi, Mahdi Bouassida, Hassen Touinsi, Mohamed Mongi Mighri, Sonia Baccari, Fathi Chebbi, Khaled Bouzeidi, Sadok Sassi. Exceptional cause of bowel obstruction: rectal endometriosis mimicking carcinoma of Rectum - a case report. The Pan African Medical Journal. 2011;10:33 Key words: Endometriosis, bowel obstruction, malignancy, surgery, Tunisia Permanent link: http://www.panafrican-med-journal.com/content/article/10/33/full Received: 26/07/2011 - Accepted: 10/10/2011 - Published: 08/11/2011 © Selim Sassi et al. The Pan African Medical Journal - ISSN 1937-8688. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Exceptional cause of bowel obstruction: rectal endometriosis mimicking carcinoma of Rectum - a case report
Selim Sassi1, Mahdi Bouassida1,&, Hassen Touinsi1, Mohamed Mongi Mighri1, Sonia Baccari1, Fathi Chebbi1, Khaled Bouzeidi2, Sadok Sassi1
1Department of surgery, Mohamed Thahar Maamouri Hospital, Nabeul, Tunisia, 2Department of radiology, Mohamed Thahar Maamouri Hospital, Nabeul, Tunisia
&Corresponding author
Mahdi Bouassida, Department of surgery, Mohamed Thahar Maamouri Hospital, 8000 Mrazga, Nabeul, Tunisia
Endometriosis with intestinal serosal involvement is not uncommon in women of childbearing age. However, endometriosis presenting as colon obstruction is rare and occurs in less than 1% of cases. The Lack of pathognomonic signs makes the diagnosis difficult, mostly because the main differential diagnosis is with neoplasm, even during the intervention. Reported here is a case of a 35-year –old woman presenting with bowel obstruction due to rectal endometriosis. The patient presented signs and symptoms of bowel obstruction. Colonoscopy and radiological findings were suggestive of rectal carcinoma. Surgeons performed an anterior resection with right salpingectomy. Histopathology diagnosed bowel endometriosis. This case demonstrates the difficulty of establishing an accurate pre- and intra- operative diagnosis and the ability of intestinal endometriosis to mimic colon cancer.
