Abstract
A 32-year-old woman visited a hospital in April 2005 because she became to feel pain in a right inguinal tumor, which had been there from earlier, during her menstrual periods. She was recommended to undergo surgery but she did not, and since then she had not consulted any doctors. In the mid-April of 2007, she was seen at our hospital because of intensifying pain of the tumor with menstruation. When she was first seen, the inguinal region enlarged with the addition of abdominal pressure. Thus endometriosis associated with an inguinal hernia was diagnosed and the patient was operated on in July of this year. At surgery the hernia opening was present in the internal inguinal ring, and a tumor was identified at the tip of the hernia sac. Histopathologically the tumor was diagnosed as endometriosis. The patient's postoperative course was uneventful. No recurrence of endometriosis has occurred as of 12 months after the operation.
A total of 28 cases of inguinal endometriosis associated with an inguinal hernia have been reported in the Japanese literature. In this paper we present our case, together with a review of these cases.
