A Case of Rectal Cancer Presented as Submucosal Tumor without the Continuation with the Mucous Membrane

Abstract

A 79-year-old Suggest adding gender : man or woman, who showed a high level of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) in a routine blood examination. Enhanced abdominal computed tomography (CT) study showed a tumor on the left side of the rectum, 23×22 mm in diameter, with heterogeneous staining. Colonoscopy revealed a submucosal tumor and normal mucous membrane. Under suspicion of a malignant tumor, a laparoscopy-assisted lower anterior resection was performed. Histopathologically, the diagnosis was a moderately differentiated tubular adenocarcinoma. There was no continuity between the cancer and the mucous membrane, and no primary tumors were found in the other organs. In a review of the literature, only 13 reports of rectal cancer which occurred in the submucosa were found in Japan.