A rare cause of small bowel transection: metastatic lung cancer

To present a case of small bowel perforation due to metastatic lung cancer.

A 78-year-old male patient, who had been diagnosed with lung cancer 3 months earlier, presented to our clinic with acute abdominal pain. He underwent emergency laparotomy. At surgery, there was a circumferential lesion encompassing the ileum with complete transection. There was no obvious macroscopic appearance of metastatic disease. The involved bowel segment was resected and an ileostomy was performed. Postoperative pathologic analysis confirmed metastatic squamous cell carcinoma metastasis to the ileum, arising from the patient's lung cancer.

This case report showed that small bowel metastases should always be considered in the differential diagnosis of lung cancer patients presenting with acute abdominal pain.