Case Report
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Jan 16, 2021; 9(2): 416-421
Published online Jan 16, 2021. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v9.i2.416
Rare case of fecal impaction caused by a fecalith originating in a large colonic diverticulum: A case report
Hiroki Tanabe, Kazuyuki Tanaka, Mitsuru Goto, Tomonobu Sato, Keisuke Sato, Mikihiro Fujiya, Toshikatsu Okumura
Hiroki Tanabe, Mikihiro Fujiya, Toshikatsu Okumura, Division of Gastroenterology and Hematology/Oncology, Department of Medicine, Asahikawa Medical University, Asahikawa 078-8510, Hokkaido, Japan
Hiroki Tanabe, Kazuyuki Tanaka, Mitsuru Goto, Tomonobu Sato, Department of Gastro-enterology, Asahikawa Kousei Hospital, Asahikawa 078-8211, Hokkaido, Japan
Keisuke Sato, Department of Pathology, Asahikawa Kousei Hospital, Asahikawa 078-8211, Hokkaido, Japan
Author contributions: Tanabe H wrote the manuscript; Tanaka K collected the data and figures; Goto M and Sato T performed the endoscopic examination; Sato K performed a histological examination; Fujiya M and Okumura T revised the manuscript and reviewed the report; all authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Informed consent statement: Written informed consent was obtained for publication of this case report and any accompanying images.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no competing interests in association with the present study.
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: Hiroki Tanabe, MD, PhD, Doctor, Division of Gastroenterology and Hematology/Oncology, Department of Medicine, Asahikawa Medical University, 2-1-1-1, Midorigaoka-Higashi, Asahikawa 078-8510, Hokkaido, Japan. tant@asahikawa-med.ac.jp
Received: August 6, 2020
Peer-review started: August 6, 2020
First decision: November 8, 2020
Revised: November 18, 2020
Accepted: November 29, 2020
Article in press: November 29, 2020
Published online: January 16, 2021
Processing time: 154 Days and 5.8 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: A 62-year-old woman presented to the emergency department with abdominal pain and vomiting. She had several medical histories of treatment for ileus over the past four years, but no specific findings were detected by colonoscopy. Fecal impaction was observed by computed tomography (CT), and the fecalith was broken and removed by colonoscopy. CT colonography verified the presence of a colonic diverticulum, which was suspected to have been responsible for the fecalith. After the surgery on the diverticulum, the patient became free from any further episodes of abdominal pain. A fecalith can be caused by a giant diverticulum that is not evident on colonoscopy.