Endometriosis within the sigmoid colon: A rare cause of bowel obstruction

Abstract

Endometriosis is a common gynecological disease, ectopic endometrium can invade any part of the body, usually in the ovary and uterine sacral ligament, while endometriosis invades the intestinal wall to cause intestinal obstruction is very rare, which easily leads to misdiagnosis. In this case report, we present a case of sigmoid endometriosis with bowel obstruction. Pathological examination is the main basis for the diagnosis of intestinal endometriosis, and the comprehensive treatment of surgery and hormonal therapy is an effective method for the treatment of intestinal endometriosis.
 doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.36.6.2525
 How to cite this:Long-zhi Z, Jian G, Wei L. Endometriosis within the sigmoid colon: A rare cause of bowel obstruction. Pak J Med Sci. 2020;36(6):---------. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.36.6.2525
 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

An unusual case of bowel obstruction secondary to endometriosis

“…Endometriosis is a common disease affecting 4-17% of women of childbearing age [1,2]. It is the extra-uterine deposition of endometrial tissue and affects the intestine in 3-37% of all patients with pelvic endometriosis but it is generally asymptomatic in nature [3].…”

“…This is termed Deep Infiltrative Endometriosis (DIE) which is defined as either >5 mm of invasion of endometrial tissue through the peritoneum or endometrial tissue invading below the peritoneum regardless of depth [5]. The recto-sigmoid colon is the most commonly affected site and accounts for 70% of cases and this is followed by the terminal ileum in 5-10% of cases and the appendix in 5% [2,6]. They can present with symptoms of abdominal pain, rectal pain, tenesmus and rectal bleeding, constipation, and nausea and vomiting which tend to be worse during menses and can often be mistaken as menstrual pain [1].…”