2018 Volume 38 Issue 5 Pages 941-943
A 53-year-old-man visited our hospital’s emergency center with a history of abdominal pain and fever. Abdominal examination revealed tenderness in the lower right abdominal. Computed tomography (CT) revealed an enlarged appendix, ascites, severe edema of the bowel wall and invagination of the intestine. We decided to perform surgery for an assumed diagnosis of acute appendicitis. However, we were concerned about the possible presence of an underlying malignant tumor, and therefore performed ileocecal resection (D3 lymphadenectomy) via a lower abdominal midline incision. The postoperative pathological diagnosis was cecal cancer (T4a, N0, M0; Stage Ⅱ). There are few case reports of appendicitis caused by a malignant tumor. In most adults, invagination of the intestine is caused by a malignant tumor. In the present case, we performed ileocecal resection due to the suspicion of acute appendicitis coexisting with a malignant tumor based on the CT findings. Malignant tumor should be suspected as a potential cause of appendicitis in patients showing invagination of the intestine on imaging.
