Large bowel obstruction and perforation secondary to endometriosis complicated by a ventriculoperitoneal shunt

A Shaw, Alex Shaw, J N Lund, Jonathan N. Lund, D Semeraro, M Cartmill, J R Reynolds, G M Tierney, Gillian Tierney
Colorectal disease : the official journal of the Association of Coloproctology of Great Britain and Ireland · 2008 · vol. 10(5) , pp. 520–521 · doi:10.1111/j.1463-1318.2008.01505.x · PMID:18355375 · W2138911726
article OA: closed CC0 ⤵ 13 in-corpus citations
View on OpenAlex View on PubMed View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-08 ⓘ

This case report details a 36-year-old woman experiencing large bowel obstruction and perforation due to endometriosis, complicated by a fecal-contaminated ventriculoperitoneal shunt leading to infection.

One-sentence paraphrase of the abstract; not a substitute for reading it. No clinical advice. How this works

Abstract

A 36-year-old lady, with a past medical history of hydrocephalus requiring a ventriculoperitoneal (VP) shunt, was admitted with symptoms and signs of large bowel obstruction. Her condition worsened and she underwent laparotomy, where she had faecal peritonitis secondary to a perforated sigmoid colon. The shunt was contaminated with faeces leading to postoperative shunt infection and meningitis. Histology of the resected sigmoid colon revealed endometriosis at the site of perforation. Endometriosis is a rare cause of large bowel obstruction and literature review has found only two other cases of perforation because of endometriosis not associated with pregnancy. No case has been reported involving the concurrent surgical management of a contaminated VP shunt. We discuss the rarity of large bowel perforation and obstruction because of endometriosis, and the complications and management of VP shunts.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

Condition tags

endometriosis

MeSH descriptors

Endometriosis Intestinal Obstruction Intestinal Perforation Sigmoid Diseases Ventriculoperitoneal Shunt Adult Endometriosis Female Humans Intestinal Obstruction Intestinal Perforation Sigmoid Diseases Ventriculoperitoneal Shunt

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 (5)

Cited by (13)

Source provenance

europepmc
last seen: 2026-06-11T06:19:48.454388+00:00
openalex
last seen: 2026-06-10T17:14:06.276822+00:00
pubmed
last seen: 2026-05-13T22:14:36.758325+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK