Hepatocolonic vagrancy: wandering liver with colonic abnormalities

Abnormalities of hepatic fixation resulting in excessive mobility in a transverse plane are uncommonly encountered. The unusual incidental finding of a freely mobile liver and spleen in a patient presenting with sigmoid volvulus is reported. At laparotomy, the inferior aspect of the right hemidiaphragm was smoothly peritonealized, without evidence of coronary or triangular ligaments. It is postulated that this abnormal hepatic mobility reflects persistence of the primitive ventral mesogastrium. To the authors' knowledge, this unusual condition has not previously been recognized. The literature relating to wandering liver is reviewed and four other cases are presented. An invariable association of persisting ventral mesogastrium with abnormalities in colonic anatomy (hepatocolonic vagrancy) is described.