Case Report
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Nov 6, 2022; 10(31): 11523-11528
Published online Nov 6, 2022. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v10.i31.11523
Rectal cancer combined with abdominal tuberculosis: A case report
Pei-Gen Liu, Xiang-Fan Chen, Pan-Feng Feng
Pei-Gen Liu, Department of General Surgery, Central Hospital of Panzhihua City, Panzhihua 617000, Sichuan Province, China
Xiang-Fan Chen, Pan-Feng Feng, Department of Pharmacy, Affiliated Hospital 2 of Nantong University, Nantong 226000, Jiangsu Province, China
Author contributions: Liu PG performed the operation; Chen XF designed the research study; Feng PF analyzed the data and wrote the manuscript; all authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Informed consent statement: A written informed consent was obtained from the patient for publication of this case report.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have nothing to disclose.
CARE Checklist (2016) statement: The authors have read the CARE Checklist (2016), and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the CARE Checklist (2016).
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Pan-Feng Feng, PhD, Surgical Oncologist, Department of Pharmacy, Affiliated Hospital 2 of Nantong University, No. 6 Haierxiang North Road, Nantong 226001, Jiangsu Province, China. 929083891@qq.com
Received: May 26, 2022
Peer-review started: May 26, 2022
First decision: June 27, 2022
Revised: June 29, 2022
Accepted: September 19, 2022
Article in press: September 19, 2022
Published online: November 6, 2022
Abstract
BACKGROUND

It is very rare to suffer from colorectal adenocarcinoma and abdominal tuberculosis simultaneously. Even in a country such as China, where tuberculosis is still endemic, its diagnosis and treatment are challenging. This article describes in detail a case of rectal cancer complicated by abdominal tuberculosis and its pathological features.

CASE SUMMARY

We outline the case of a 71-year-old female who was admitted with intermittent blood in the stool over the past year. The patient was diagnosed with low rectal cancer and received neoadjuvant therapy. The patient then returned to the hospital for surgery, but diffusely distributed nodules were found during laparoscopic exploration. The diagnosis of rectal cancer with extensive metastasis was considered during the operation. There was no opportunity for radical surgery. Thus, nodules were taken for pathological examination, and the abdomen was closed. The histopathological diagnosis was tuberculous granuloma, and the patient was treated with standardized anti-tuberculosis drugs in a specialized hospital. Later, the patient again came to our hospital and underwent abdominoperineal resection. She was discharged 10 d after the operation in good clinical condition.

CONCLUSION

We aim to emphasize the importance of preoperative and postoperative pathological examination in diagnosis and treatment.

Keywords: Abdominal tuberculosis, Rectal cancer, Extrapulmonary tuberculosis, Peritoneal nodules, Case report

Core Tip: We report a relatively rare case of rectal adenocarcinoma combined with abdominal tuberculosis. The difficulty is that it is easily misdiagnosed as rectal cancer with extensive abdominal and pelvic metastasis, thus delaying treatment. Therefore, the pathological examination of abdominal and pelvic nodules during and after surgery is very important in diagnosis and treatment.