Case Report
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Nov 16, 2015; 3(11): 965-969
Published online Nov 16, 2015. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v3.i11.965
Case of Fitz-Hugh-Curtis syndrome in male without presentation of sexually transmitted disease
Haram Yi, Chan Sup Shim, Gyu Won Kim, Jung Seok Kim, In Zoo Choi
Haram Yi, Gyu Won Kim, Jung Seok Kim, In Zoo Choi, Department of Internal Medicine, Sahmyook Seoul Hospital, Seoul 130711, South Korea
Chan Sup Shim, Global Digestive Disease Center, Department of Internal Medicine, Konkuk University Medical Center, Seoul 05030, South Korea
Author contributions: Yi H and Kim GW designed research; Yi H, Kim GW, Kim JS and Choi IZ were attending doctors for the patients; Shim CS organized and revised the report; and Yi H wrote the paper.
Institutional review board statement: This case report was reviewed and approved by the Sahmyook Medical center Institutional Review Board.
Informed consent statement: Patient provided informed written consent for this publication.
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: Chan Sup Shim, MD, PhD, Global Digestive Disease Center, Department of Internal Medicine, Konkuk University Medical Center, 120-1 Neungdong-ro, Hwayang-dong, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul 05030, South Korea. chansshim@naver.com
Telephone: +82-2-20305026 Fax: +82-2-20305029
Received: May 4, 2015
Peer-review started: May 9, 2015
First decision: June 19, 2015
Revised: July 6, 2015
Accepted: August 30, 2015
Article in press: September 9, 2015
Published online: November 16, 2015
Abstract

Fitz-Hugh-Curtis syndrome is a type of perihepatitis that causes liver capsular infection without infecting the hepatic parenchyma or pelvis. Fitz-Hugh-Curtis syndrome is known to occur commonly in women of childbearing age who do not use oral contraceptives and have sexual partners older than 25 years of age. However, the syndrome has been reported to occur rarely in males. The clinical symptoms are right upper quadrant pain and tenderness, and pleuritic right sided chest pain. The clinical presentation is similar in male and female. We experienced a case of Fitz-Hugh-Curtis syndrome in a 60-year-old man with the chief complaint of right upper quadrant abdominal pain. Despite a previous history of gonorrhea, we have also described our experiences of improved symptoms and recovery with allopathic medicines and have thereby reported the present case with a literature review.

Keywords: Male, Right upper quadrant pain, Fitz-Hugh-Curtis syndrome, Perihepatitis, Sexually transmitted disease, Liver capsular infection

Core tip: Fitz-Hugh-Curtis syndrome is known to occur commonly in sexually active women and very rarely in males. We experienced a case of Fitz-Hugh-Curtis syndrome in a 60-year-old man with the chief complaint of right upper quadrant abdominal pain on inspiration. Despite of negative laboratory result, we diagnosed as Fitz-Hugh-Curtis syndrome by symptom and liver computed tomography scan. We have also described our experiences of improved symptoms and recovery with allopathic medicines.