Incidental Intestinal Schwannoma in a Patient of Ulcerative Colitis With Adhesive Intestinal Obstruction: A Case Report

Abstract

Gastrointestinal (GI) schwannomas are very rare. Among GI schwannoma, the most common site is the stomach. Very few cases of intestinal schwannoma have been reported in the literature. Moreover, intestinal schwannoma in the setting of inflammatory bowel disease has rarely been reported. We report a case of ileal schwannoma incidentally detected in a 52-year-old lady with long-lasting ulcerative colitis having intestinal obstruction. On laparotomy, the patient was found to have adhesive intestinal obstruction due to a previous abdominal hysterectomy. On careful inspection of the bowel loops, a 2cm ileal lesion on the mesenteric border was detected. Segmental ileal resection was performed. Histopathology revealed a mesenchymal tumor with immunohistochemical analysis suggestive of schwannoma (CD117-, CD34-, SMA-, and S100+). The patient had an uneventful recovery with no recurrence on follow-up.

Ileal Schwannoma: A Rare Cause of Pelvic Mass

“…Our patient had follow-ups within 4 years in the surgical outpatient clinic every 6 months and remains symptom-free. Literature data also supports the idea that GI schwannoma is a benign condition and nearly no malignant transformation is observed [2,7,[12][13][14][15], and the long-term follow-ups of patients with schwannomas of the gastrointestinal tract have not shown any propensity to recurrence following complete excision [2].…”

“…Since the findings of small bowel schwannomas are extremely rare, their incidence in the population is unclear and has only been estimated in some existing studies [2,7]. In the current digital literature, we found that only a few small bowel schwannomas have been described [2,7,[12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] that localised to the duodenum, jejunum, or ileum. The majority of patients (about 2/3) were females.…”