A Case of Metachronous Solitary Splenic Metastasis of Colon Cancer

Naoto Yamamoto, Ten'i Godai, Manabu Shiozawa, Makoto Akaike, Yukio Sugimasa, Shoji Takemiya, Yasushi Rino¹⁾ and Toshio Imada²⁾

Department of Colorectal Surgery, Kanagawa Cancer Center Hospital
Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, Yokohama City University¹⁾
Yokohama City University Medical Center²⁾

A case is presented of a 75-year-old woman who underwent sigmoidectomy for sigmoid colon cancer in January, 1997 (well, se, ly1, v0, and n0; Stage II). Postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy was not carried out. From November, 2002, the patient's serum CEA level increased and a 4×2 cm-sized low density area was detected in the spleen with a CT scan study in March, 2003. FDG-PET revealed strong uptake at the tumor and no other lesion was discovered. Metachronous solitary splenic metastasis was suspected, a splenectomy was performed in May, 2003, and the postoperative histological findings confirmed splenic metastasis from sigmoid colon cancer. Adjuvant chemotherapy was not used but the patient is alive without any recurrences for 19 months after the splenectomy. Since a solitary splenic metastasis from a colon cancer is rare, this case is presented with a review of the literature.

Key words
colorectal cancer, splenic metastasis, FDG-PET

Reprint requests
Naoto Yamamoto Yokohama City University Medical Center Gastroenterological Center
4-57 Urafunecho, Minami-ku, Yokohama, 232-0024 JAPAN

Accepted
July 27, 2005

To read the PDF file you will need Abobe Reader installed on your computer.