Locally advanced carcinoma of the cecum presenting as a right inguinal hernia: a case report and review of the literature.

An inguinal hernia is a common surgical disease in elderly patients, but an association with intra-abdominal malignancies is rare. We report a case of a 78-year-old Caucasian woman presenting with a right inguinal mass suspected to be an irreducible hernia. A computed tomography scan showed the presence of the cecum in her inguinal canal, with an irregular thickening of the cecal wall suggesting a neoplasm within the inguinal hernia. A colonoscopy was not completed owing to the huge involvement of the cecum into the hernia sac. A laparotomy was performed, at which time the cecum was herniated through her right inguinal canal and the cecal tumor had infiltrated her abdominal wall and femoral artery. A right inguinal incision was necessary for good vascular control and to carry out an en bloc resection of the tumor with the inguinal wall. A right colectomy was performed and the inguinal wall repaired. The postoperative course was uneventful and our patient received adjuvant radiochemotherapy. We describe a rare case of a locally advanced cecal tumor presenting as a right inguinal hernia. Both diagnosis and surgical treatment in elderly patients represent a challenge for the surgeon in cases of aggressive tumors as reported in this paper.

Citation

Roberto Luca Meniconi, Giovanni Vennarecci, Pasquale Lepiane, Andrea Laurenzi, Roberto Santoro, Marco Colasanti, Mario Antonini, Giuseppe Maria Ettorre. Locally advanced carcinoma of the cecum presenting as a right inguinal hernia: a case report and review of the literature. Journal of medical case reports. 2013 Aug 14;7:206

PMID: 23945015

search → result