Case Report
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Aug 26, 2021; 9(24): 7231-7236
Published online Aug 26, 2021. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v9.i24.7231
Incidentally discovered asymptomatic splenic hamartoma misdiagnosed as an aneurysm: A case report
Xue-Feng Cao, Li-Peng Yang, Song-Song Fan, Qiang Wei, Xu-Tao Lin, Xing-Yuan Zhang, Ling-Qun Kong
Xue-Feng Cao, Li-Peng Yang, Song-Song Fan, Xu-Tao Lin, Xing-Yuan Zhang, Ling-Qun Kong, Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, Binzhou Medical University Hospital, Binzhou 256603, Shandong Province, China
Qiang Wei, Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery and Clinical Nutrition Center, Binzhou Medical University Hospital, Binzhou 256600, Shandong Province, China
Author contributions: Cao XF, Kong LQ, Zhang XY, and Lin XT treated the patient; Cao XF, Yang LP, and Fan SS collected the data and drafted the manuscript; Cao XF, Wei Q, and Kong LQ participated in the analysis; Cao XF, Yang LP, Fan SS, Kong LQ, and Zhang XY critically revised the manuscript; All authors have approved the final article.
Informed consent statement: Written informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
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: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Ling-Qun Kong, MD, Additional Professor, Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, Binzhou Medical University Hospital, Huanghe 2th Road, Binzhou 256603, Shandong Province, China. konglingqun2014@163.com
Received: April 8, 2021
Peer-review started: April 8, 2021
First decision: May 11, 2021
Revised: May 24, 2021
Accepted: July 2, 2021
Article in press: July 2, 2021
Published online: August 26, 2021
Abstract
BACKGROUND

Splenic hamartoma (SH) is a rare, benign vascular proliferation that is often found incidentally. It may be misdiagnosed as a splenic aneurysm or splenic malignancy.

CASE SUMMARY

A 21-year-old male patient was admitted to our hospital with a complaint of an incidentally discovered asymptomatic splenic space-occupying lesion for 2 wk. Abdominal computed tomography (CT) scan showed a circular low-density shadow in the hilum of the spleen. Contrast-enhanced CT revealed an aneurysm located in the hilum of the spleen before operation. Laparoscopic splenectomy was performed and postoperative pathology revealed the presence of SH.

CONCLUSION

Imaging studies are insufficient for the differential diagnosis of SH from other diseases, and laparoscopic splenectomy is a less invasive procedure and useful for the diagnostic purpose as well.

Keywords: Splenic hamartoma, Aneurysm, Misdiagnosis, Asymptomatic splenic hamartoma, Case report

Core Tip: Splenic hamartoma (SH) is a rare, benign vascular proliferation that is found incidentally and often misdiagnosed. We present a case of incidentally discovered asymptomatic splenic space-occupying lesion, which was misdiagnosed as a splenic aneurysm. Laparoscopic splenectomy was performed and postoperative pathology revealed the presence of SH. The findings of this case study emphasize that imaging studies are insufficient for the differential diagnosis of SH from other diseases, and laparoscopic splenectomy is a less invasive procedure that is useful for diagnostic purposes as well.