Case of giant appendicolith: A common ailment with a rare finding

Abstract

Giant appendicoliths are rare appendicoliths with the largest diameter of more than 2 cm. It can increase the risk of complications such as perforation or abscess formation. This is a case of an uncommon definitive pathology diagnosed for a right iliac fossa calcification with a rare transoperative finding.

Routine colonoscopy with a surprise in the cecum: It’s a giant appendicolith! A Case report and review of the literature

“…In the remaining two cases rectal blood loss was the main symptom [10,27]. In all cases where abdominal pain was reported either clear signs of appendicitis [12,23,25,30,32,35,36] or additional perforation were present [12,22,24,28,29,34]. These findings stand in contrast to our case, which is the first reported GA that is completely asymptomatic.…”

“…In nine cases, US was the initial diagnostic tool employed. However, in only two cases (22.2 %) was the diagnosis solely based on US-images, without the use of other diagnostic tools such as CT. [25,34]. To the contrary, in almost all cases CT was able to clearly identify the appendicolith [10,22,23,24,25,26,29,31,32,33,34,35,36].…”

“…Due to the rarity of GAs, no study has systematically evaluated the clinical impact of this condition and the knowledge is based on individual case reports [10,12,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36]…”

“…A review of the cases revealed that the overall size varied between 2.0 cm [25] and 4.5 cm in the widest diameter. Three of the reported cases exceeded 4 cm in length [12].…”

“…The patients were predominantly young (< 40 years) and male [12,23,24,25,26,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35]. With regard to symptoms leading to diagnosis, in all but two cases the main symptom was abdominal pain (89,5 %) [12,22,23,24,25,26,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36], with few patients presenting with atypical abdominal symptoms (mainly thought to be urolithiasis) [28,30,32]. In the remaining two cases rectal blood loss was the main symptom [10,27].…”