Abstract
A 39-year-old woman with an ovarian cancer underwent a colonoscopy for preoperative evaluation of the colon. Results showed a carcinoid tumor of the lower rectum of which diagnosis was confirmed by the histologic examination of a biopsy specimen. She was admitted to our department eight months after the total hysterectomy and bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy for the above mentioed ovarian cancer. The second colonoscopy revealed the other one more carcinoid tumor near the known one. Both of them were resected with a transsacral rectal wedge resection. The resected specimen had two yellowish, elastic hard, round tumors which were 8×8×5mm and 5×5×1mm in size, respectively. Histologic examination showed that both tumors were carcinoid tumors invading the submucosal layer. The widespread use of colonoscopy has led to many more discoveries of rectal carcinoid tumors. Although a case with multiple carcinoid tumors of the rectum is rare, the incidence of multicentricity in rectal carcinoids ranges from 1.4 to 10% averaging 5.9% in the literature. Therefore, whenever we perform a colonoscopy and operation, we should bear in mind that the rectal carcinoid could be multiple.
