Article Text

Download PDFPDF
Acute appendicitis in pregnancy mimicking leiomyoma pain
  1. Yuna Kim and
  2. Inchul Hwang
  1. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Seoul Medical Center, Jungnang-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea
  1. Correspondence to Dr Yuna Kim; glam21{at}naver.com

Abstract

Acute appendicitis is the most common nonobstetric condition requiring surgery in pregnancy. However, the diagnosis of acute appendicitis during pregnancy is challenging because of obscure clinical manifestations and laboratory findings. Intravenous antibiotic treatment is not preferred over operation because of the poor outcome. Here, we present a case of a 34-year-old woman in the second trimester of pregnancy who presented with suprapubic pain and an unexpected 3.5 cm-long exophytic intramural myoma on the right anterolateral wall of the uterus rather than prominent appendicitis features; thus, it took 2 days to confirm the diagnosis. Laparoscopic appendectomy was performed, and the patient was discharged without lingering reports on postoperative day 6. Acute appendicitis during pregnancy is common; therefore, attentive clinical suspicion will contribute to shorter hospital stays as well as fewer maternal and fetal complications.

  • obstetrics and gynaecology
  • gastrointestinal surgery
  • ultrasonography
  • pregnancy

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.

Footnotes

  • Contributors YK and IH equally contributed to this work in terms of case management and manuscript preparation.

  • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

  • Competing interests None declared.

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