Acute Small Bowel Obstruction and Small Bowel Perforation as a Clinical Debut of Intestinal Endometriosis: A Report of Four Cases and Review of the Literature

Angel Torralba-Morón, Ángel Torralba-Morón, María Urbanowicz, Maria Urbanowicz, Carolina Ibarrola-de Andrés, Carolina Ibarrola-De Andres, G. López-Alonso, Guadalupe Lopez-Alonso, F Colina-Ruizdelgado, Francisco Colina-Ruizdelgado, Juan‐Manuel Guerra‐Vales, Juan-Manuel Guerra-Vales
Internal medicine (Tokyo, Japan) · 2016 · vol. 55(18) , pp. 2595–2599 · doi:10.2169/internalmedicine.55.6461 · PMID:27629952 · W2519864203
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⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-07 ⓘ

This report details four cases where intestinal endometriosis presented acutely as small bowel obstruction or perforation, highlighting its rare but significant role in differential diagnoses for surgical acute abdomen.

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⚙ AI-generated deep summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-07 ⓘ

The paper reports four cases of intestinal endometriosis presenting acutely as either acute small bowel obstruction (two cases) or small bowel perforation (two cases). Across these cases, endometriosis was not diagnosed preoperatively, and the authors emphasize the exceptional nature of acute onset in a condition typically associated with chronic symptoms. The paper’s main contribution is a case-based review of this rare acute presentation and its implication for differential diagnosis in acute obstructive or perforative small/large bowel processes, with the caveat that these are case reports lacking broader confirmatory evidence. This paper is centrally about endometriosis — it describes intestinal endometriosis presenting as acute small bowel obstruction or perforation in four case reports.

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Abstract

Endometriosis is a quite common pathology, however, intestinal endometriosis is a rare condition, which typically occurs with chronic symptoms. Its acute presentation is very infrequent. We herein report four cases of intestinal endometriosis, in which the clinical debut occurred acutely: two as an acute small bowel obstruction and two as a small bowel perforation. None of the cases had a preoperative diagnosis of endometriosis. The interest of these cases lies in this exceptional form of presentation, such as a surgical acute abdomen. Therefore, intestinal endometriosis should be taken into account in the differential diagnosis of an acute obstructive or perforative process of the small or large bowel.

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Condition tags

endometriosis

MeSH descriptors

Endometriosis Intestinal Obstruction Intestinal Perforation Abdomen, Acute Abdomen, Acute Acute Disease Adult Colectomy Diagnosis, Differential Endometriosis Endometriosis Female Humans Intestinal Obstruction Intestinal Obstruction Intestinal Obstruction Intestinal Perforation Intestinal Perforation Intestinal Perforation Intestine, Small

Citation neighborhood

Papers in the corpus that this work cites (lower rings, blue) and that cite this one (upper rings, green). Dot size scales with the paper's in-corpus citation count — bigger dot = more influential within the endo/adeno field. Click a dot to open that paper. [ expand to 2 hops ] — adds papers reached through this work's immediate citers/citees. Heavier; up to 60 extra dots.

References (19)

Cited by (15)

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