Case Report
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Surg. Feb 27, 2016; 8(2): 169-172
Published online Feb 27, 2016. doi: 10.4240/wjgs.v8.i2.169
Laparoscopic surgery for small-bowel obstruction caused by Meckel’s diverticulum
Takatsugu Matsumoto, Motoki Nagai, Daisuke Koike, Yukihiro Nomura, Nobutaka Tanaka
Takatsugu Matsumoto, Department of Gastroenterological Surgery, Dokkyo Medical University, Tochigi 321-0293, Japan
Motoki Nagai, Daisuke Koike, Yukihiro Nomura, Nobutaka Tanaka, Department of Surgery, Asahi General Hospital, Chiba 289-2511, Japan
Author contributions: All authors contributed to the acquisition of data, writing, and revision of this manuscript.
Supported by Department of General Surgery, Asahi General Hospital, I-1326, Asahi-shi, Chiba, Japan.
Institutional review board statement: This case report was exempt from the Institutional Review Board standards at Asahi General Hospital in Chiba, Japan.
Informed consent statement: The patient involved in this study gave her written informed consent authorizing use and disclosure of her protected health information.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors have no conflicts of interests to declare.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (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: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Takatsugu Matsumoto, MD, Assistant Professor, Department of Gastroenterological Surgery, Dokkyo Medical University, 880, Kitakobayashi, Mibu, Tochigi 321-0293, Japan. takatsugu_m_475@yahoo.co.jp
Telephone: +81-282-872158 Fax: +81-282-866317
Received: April 22, 2015
Peer-review started: April 30, 2015
First decision: June 24, 2015
Revised: October 8, 2015
Accepted: November 3, 2015
Article in press: November 4, 2015
Published online: February 27, 2016
Abstract

A 26-year-old woman was referred to our hospital because of abdominal distention and vomiting. Contrast-enhanced computed tomography showed a blind loop of the bowel extending to near the uterus and a fibrotic band connecting the mesentery to the top of the bowel, suggestive of Meckel’s diverticulum (MD) and a mesodiverticular band (MDB). After intestinal decompression, elective laparoscopic surgery was carried out. Using three 5-mm ports, MD was dissected from the surrounding adhesion and MDB was divided intracorporeally. And subsequent Meckel’s diverticulectomy was performed. The presence of heterotopic gastric mucosa was confirmed histologically. The patient had an uneventful postoperative course and was discharged 5 d after the operation. She has remained healthy and symptom-free during 4 years of follow-up. This was considered to be an unusual case of preoperatively diagnosed and laparoscopically treated small-bowel obstruction due to MD in a young adult woman.

Keywords: Surgery, Human, Meckel’s diverticulum, Small-bowel obstruction, Laparoscopic surgery

Core tip: Meckel’s diverticulum (MD) is a rare innate anomaly of the gastrointestinal tract caused by incomplete obliteration of the omphalomesenteric duct. It sometimes causes small bowel obstruction. However, as it symptoms are so non-specific, it may be difficult to make a correct diagnosis without exploratory laparotomy. This is a successful case of small-bowel obstruction caused by MD that was diagnosed preoperatively using multi-dimensional contrast-enhanced computed tomography and treated by elective laparoscopic surgery.