A Case of Intestinal Endometriosis Treated with Laparoscopic-assisted Sigmoid Colon Resection and Suspected of Malignancy Intraoperatively

This case report describes a 45-year-old woman with abdominal pain and hematochezia in whom lower gastrointestinal endoscopy revealed a sigmoid colon mass; biopsy and imaging were unable to establish a definitive diagnosis, prompting surgery for diagnostic purposes. Intraoperatively, the mass was adherent to the left ovarian vessels and the left lateral femoral cutaneous nerve, and malignancy infiltration was suspected, so the authors performed laparoscopic-assisted sigmoid colon resection with D2 dissection and en bloc resection of the suspected involved structures. Pathology ultimately confirmed intestinal endometriosis with no malignant findings, noting that these lesions commonly extend beyond the submucosal layer, which contributes to low preoperative diagnostic rates with biopsy. This paper is centrally about endometriosis — specifically a case of intestinal (bowel) endometriosis presenting as a suspected malignant sigmoid colon mass.

Read from the paper's body, not the abstract. Not a substitute for reading the paper. No clinical advice. How this works