Abstract
An 81-year-old woman without any previous history of laparotomy was admitted to our hospital for sudden onset of severe abdominal pain. Abdominal computed tomography scan (CT) revealed an incarcerated small bowel loop in the lateral position of the sigmoid mesocolon. Under a diagnosis of strangulated ileus due to an internal hernia, we conducted an emergency operation. Laparotomy disclosed an oval defect about 2cm in diameter in the sigmoid mesocolon and about 150cm of the small bowel was incarcerated in the defect. Our case could not be preoperatively diagnosed as ileus due to the transmesosigmoid hernia, but a retrospective review of the abdominal CT scan showed characteristic findings of the small bowel shifted to the left. Transmesosigmoid hernia is rare and the Japanese literature was thus reviewed.
