FOUR CASES OF NONTRAUMATIC HEMATOMA OF THE ABDOMINAL WALL

Abstract

Four cases of nontraumatic hematoma of the abdominal wall are presented with a review of the litera-ture.
All four patients had precipitating causes such as bleeding tendency, cough, oral intake of anticoagulant, and exercise for the abdominal muscle. They were treated by removal of hematoma and drainage. In three out of four cases, the definite diagnosis was attained by preoperative imaging procedures including ultra-sonography (US) and CT, but removal of hematoma and drainage were performed due to an increasing ten-dency of the hematoma and severe abdominal pain. The remaining one patient whose definite diagnosis could not be made preoperatively was operated on for the purpose of diagnosis.
In the treatment of abdominal hematoma, conservative therapy is principally employed. For that, the cor-rect diagnosis is mandatary. In order to attain the definite diagnosis of the disease, we must keep it in mind and can rely upon US and CT findings which are very valuable. Especially, CT is capable of offering subjec-tive evaluation, and hence CT should be actively used for cases in which US reveals only uncertain findings.