 |
Case Report
An unusual case of a patient with two concurrent small bowel perforations from metastatic melanoma
1 General Surgery Registrar, General Surgery, Canberra Hospital, Canberra, ACT, Australia, Australia
2 Consultant, General Surgery, Canberra Hospital, Canberra, ACT, Australia
Address correspondence to:
Zen Zuan Yong
Canberra, ACT,
Australia
Message to Corresponding Author
Article ID: 100149Z12ZY2025
Access full text article on other devices
Access PDF of article on other devices
How to cite this article
Yong ZZ, Balasooriya J. An unusual case of a patient with two concurrent small bowel perforations from metastatic melanoma. J Case Rep Images Surg 2025;11(1):5–8.ABSTRACT
This case report involves a patient with a background of metastatic melanoma presenting with an acute abdomen to the emergency department. Upon presentation, a computed tomography (CT) scan demonstrated radiological evidence of free air within the abdomen and the patient underwent a laparotomy during which 2 concurrent sites of perforation in the bowel were identified. Subsequent histology demonstrated these to be metastatic deposits from melanoma.
The discussion involved the rarity of such reported cases and treatment is mainly surgical. Metastases commonly involve the gastrointestinal tract and are generally asymptomatic, only showing signs in late presentations such as perforations, obstructions, intussuseption, or hemorrhage. It would be concluded in the report that if metastases can be detected earlier, this would result in with better prognosis and therefore demonstrating the importance to examine the entire bowel for any other pathology sites even when one site of perforation is found.
Keywords: Bowel perforation secondary to melanoma, Concurrent small bowel perforation, Metastatic melanoma
SUPPORTING INFORMATION
Author Contributions
Zen Zuan Yong - Substantial contributions to conception and design, Acquisition of data, Analysis of data, Interpretation of data, Drafting the article, Revising it critically for important intellectual content, Final approval of the version to be published
Janaka Balasooriya - Substantial contributions to conception and design, Acquisition of data, Analysis of data, Interpretation of data, Drafting the article, Revising it critically for important intellectual content, Final approval of the version to be published
Guarantor of SubmissionThe corresponding author is the guarantor of submission.
Source of SupportNone
Consent StatementWritten informed consent was obtained from the patient for publication of this article.
Data AvailabilityAll relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files.
Conflict of InterestAuthors declare no conflict of interest.
Copyright© 2025 Zen Zuan Yong et al. This article is distributed under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium provided the original author(s) and original publisher are properly credited. Please see the copyright policy on the journal website for more information.
