Patient: Male, 77-year-old
Final Diagnosis: Pulse granuloma
Symptoms: None
Medication:—
Clinical Procedure: —
Specialty: Gastroenterology and Hepatology • Oncology
Objective:
Challenging differential diagnosis
Background:
Food particles may sometime lodge in the intestinal wall, resulting in a granuloma. Pulse granuloma is associated with the seed of a legume and has a characteristic appearance on histology. This report describes a case of pulse granuloma of the descending colon identified by fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) imaging. Imaging was done 19 months after surgical resection for rectal carcinoma, and the results of imaging alone suggested a tumor metastasis.
Case Report:
A 77-year-old man underwent sigmoid colostomy for sigmoid colon perforation due to obstruction by rectal cancer affecting the upper rectum approximately 2 years ago. Two months later, after his general condition improved, he underwent laparoscopic low anterior resection. On postoperative pathological examination, the lesion was diagnosed as stage II. Nineteen months later, computed tomography showed an irregular nodule on the dorsolateral side of the descending colon. FDG-PET revealed positive results, and peritoneal dissemination was suspected. Because the lesion was localized and there was no other evidence of metastasis, resection was performed. A pathological examination revealed a pulse granuloma with a central legume seed, and no obvious malignant findings were observed.
Conclusions:
This report has highlighted the importance of imaging and histopathology in cases in which a solitary nodule is present in the bowel in a patient with previous successful treatment for malignancy. Pulse granuloma, or other types of granuloma associated with impacted food material, may be a cause of a solitary nodule, or pseudotumor, in the bowel wall.
The claw‐type titanium plate has been successfully applied to manage a flail chest. However, rare and life‐threatening organ injury occurs due to an insufficient claw bend. We report an ingenuity of surgical fixation using KANI® plates (USCI Japan, Tokyo, Japan) in a flail chest. A 60‐year‐old man with a severe flail chest underwent a surgical rib fixation. He had multiple rib fractures accompanied by dislocation and protruding crossed rib edges; we assumed a possibility of lung injury during a standard procedure in which the KANI® plates would be placed from outside the chest wall. Therefore, we placed KANI® plates inside the chest wall to ensure sufficient claw bend and to cover crossed rib edges to prevent organ injuries. We propose that our new ingenuity provides a safe and tight rib fixation in rib fractures with protruding crossed rib edges which the standard method cannot flatten.
Background
A hemothorax as the initial manifestation of bronchiectasis is extremely rare. We report a case of a sudden hemothorax due to exacerbation of clinically latent bronchiectasis under a direct oral anticoagulant.
Case presentation
A 77-year-old woman presented with chest pain and a fever noted since the day before. She had stage G3 chronic kidney disease and received edoxaban for paroxysmal atrial fibrillation. She had no history of trauma or respiratory symptoms. A chest computed tomography revealed a mass with a surrounding opacity in the right lower lobe with a pleural effusion. Conservative treatment was chosen because of the stable vital signs and her respiratory condition. Her oxygen saturation dropped 7 h later with progressive anemia. Repeated chest computed tomography showed a worsening pulmonary opacity and pleural effusion. She underwent a right lower lobectomy successfully. The histopathological findings suggested that the preceding infection of the subpleural focal bronchiectasis caused the bleeding. In addition, a steep caliber change between the subpleural focal bronchiectasis and proximal normal branch may have caused an intraluminal pressure gradient resulting in a peripheral discharge causing a pleural rupture with a hemothorax.
Conclusion
The sudden hemothorax could have been the initial manifestation of bronchiectasis. Particular attention should be paid to peripherally localized bronchiectasis even if it is without any clinical symptoms, especially in patients with a comorbidity such as a susceptibility to infections and the use of direct oral anticoagulants.
Highlights
A submillimeter metastatic lung tumor was resected successfully by intraoperative marking using a mobile CT with a navigation system.
This method is safer and might be more accurate than the traditional hook wire marking without the necessity of percutaneous lung puncture.
It also reduced a patient’s stress because the whole procedure could be done at a single stage under general anesthesia.
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