You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Rare disease
CASE REPORT
Twisted intra-abdominal cyst in a neonate: a surprise revelation
  1. Ferzine Mohamed1,
  2. Ramesh Babu Telugu2,
  3. Immanuel Sampath Karl1
  1. 1Department of Paediatric Surgery, Christian Medical College and Hospital Vellore, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India
  2. 2Department of General Pathology, Christian Medical College, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India
  1. Correspondence to Dr Ferzine Mohamed, fuzzmohamed{at}gmail.com

Summary

We, herein, present a male neonate with an antenatally detected intra-abdominal cyst who presented at 18 days of life at which time, the ultrasound revealed a 5×4 cm cyst. Since he was asymptomatic, we planned to repeat the ultrasound a month later and operate if the cyst showed no regression. However, a week later, he presented with an acute abdomen, irritable cry and a repeat ultrasound showing a larger (8×6 cm) cystic mass with debris within. He was taken up for an emergency laparotomy. Intraoperatively, the cyst was found arising from the left lateral abdominal wall free from all structures with a twisted pedicle. Histopathology surprisingly revealed seminiferous tubules within the cyst wall with the vas deferens, thus confirming the diagnosis of a torsion of intra-abdominal testis. Hence, we emphasise the importance of examining for an undescended testis when dealing with a male neonate presenting with a cystic intra-abdominal mass.

  • paediatrics
  • congenital disorders
  • neonatal health

https://doi.org/10.1136/bcr-2017-220474

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Contributors I hereby confirm that I, FM, am the corresponding author. The second author is RBT from the Department of Pathology and I am grateful to him for the photomicrographs and interpretation of those to help substantiate the claims in this paper of an undescended testis. The third author is ISK, who is the head of the Unit of Paediatric Surgery, CMC, Vellore, and under whose guidance, the management of this case was done. All three authors have made substantial contributions to the conception and design of the work; the acquisition, analysis and interpretation of data for the work; drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content and have given final approval of the version to be published. All are in agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. FM was responsible for the idea, conducting and reporting the case, planning the layout of the paper and analysis and revision of the paper. ISK was responsible for the idea, planning the layout of the paper, analysis, revision of the paper and for proofreading. RBT was responsible for proofreading and provided the histopathology photomicrographs and the interpretation of the photographs that were provided in the report. All three authors are guarantors of the paper. FM and IMK identified and managed the case.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent Obtained.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.