A 'palliative' resection which became potentially curative

We report a very unusual case of a woman with rectal cancer, who, at operation, appeared to have peritoneal metastases. An anterior resection was carried out, and subsequent histology showed the rectal tumour to be a well-differentiated Dukes' B adenocarcinoma, which had been completely excised. The apparent 'metastases' were found to be schistosomal granulomas and there was also a schistosomal granuloma within the tumour.