A rare cause of acute abdomen; computed tomographic & ultrasound features (Case reports & review of literature)

摘要

Acute epiploic appendagitis is an uncommon cause of abdominal pain that has only recently been recognized. The diagnosis of this condition primarily relies on cross-sectional imaging and is made most often on CT, although occasionally sonography 12-has been used . Epiploic appendages are fat- and blood vessel-containing outpouchings protruding from the serosal surface of the colon4. They appear in the fifth month of fetal life and in an adult human, the average number of epiploic appendages is approximately 50-2 ,3 , 5100.They measure from 2-5 cm in length . Epiploic appendagitis is the inflammatory process of the epiploic appendage and has primary and secondary types. Primary epiploic appendagitis (PEA) is the infarction and inflammation of an appendage because of torsion or spontaneous venous thrombosis. PEA mimics acute abdominal diseases; thus, it must be distinguished from the secondary epiploic 2, 3appendagitis, which is caused by neighborhood inflammatory processes such as diverticulitis, appendicitis or cholecystitis . The most common computed tomographic (CT) appearance of acute epiploic appendagitis is the presence of 1.5- to 3.5-cm-diameter fat-density 1lesion with surrounding inflammatory changes abutting the anterior wall of the sigmoid colon