Abstract
The patient was a 63-year-old woman who was seen in our hospital internal medicine department for lower abdominal pain and fever 8 days earlier. There was abnormal dilation of the sigmoid colon with surrounding free air on abdominal CT. She was referred to surgery with a diagnosis of peritonitis due to sigmoid colon perforation. Additional contrast-enhanced CT showed thrombus over the splenic vein from the inferior mesenteric vein and multiple nodules in both lungs. Emergency abdominal surgery was performed on the same day, with resection of a small length of sigmoid colon including the area of perforation, and an artificial anus was created with the sigmoid stump. Postoperatively, lung function and liver function did not worsen. A case of peritonitis due to colonic perforation with septic pulmonary embolism is relatively rare ; therefore this case is reported along with a review of the relevant literature.
