Case report

A rare case of ascending colon actinomycosis mimicking cancer

Dimitrios Filippou¹ , Ioannis Psimitis¹ , Diamanto Zizi² and Spiros Rizos¹

¹  Department of Surgery, GP Hospital of Piraeus "Tzanion", Tzani & Afentouli str, Pireaus-Athens, Greece

²  Department of Pathology, GP Hospital of Piraeus "Tzanion", Tzani & Afentouli str, Pireaus-Athens, Greece

author email corresponding author email

BMC Gastroenterology 2005, 5:1doi:10.1186/1471-230X-5-1

Published:	4 January 2005

Abstract

Background

Actinomycosis is a rare inflammatory disease caused by an anaerobic bacterium that can rarely affect the large intestine.

Case presentation

We present a rare case of a cecum and ascending colon actinomycosis in a 72 years old woman, mimicking clinically a malignant inflammatory tumor of the right colon. The patient complained of right lower quadrant pain. Although our first thought was a peri-appendiceal abscess, CT scan suggested a right colon tumor. The patient underwent a right colectomy and the histological examination of the specimen revealed colon actinomycosis.

Conclusions

Preoperative diagnosis in colon actinomycosis is difficult to achieve. Treatment of choice is antibiotics administration. A review of the possible pathogenesis and therapeutic modalities is also presented.