2020 Volume 56 Issue 2 Pages 210-213
A two-year-old boy was diagnosed as having appendicitis and referred to our hospital because he had developed abdominal pain and was found to have appendiceal swelling on an imaging examination at a previous hospital. Laparoscopic exploration revealed that the tip of the swollen appendix was attached to the umbilical artery cord, and the cord was swollen. Because the inflammation of the appendix was suspected to have extended to the abdominal wall, the appendix was resected after dissecting the adhesion to the abdominal wall during surgery. A histopathological examination revealed that the inflammation of the appendix had spread from an external source. From these operative and histopathological findings, it was suspected that an infection of the umbilical artery cord had spread to the inflammation of the appendix. Infection of the umbilical artery cord is very rare, and to the best of our knowledge, there have been no other reports of an infection of the umbilical artery cord spreading to cause secondary appendicitis.
