Management of rectal inflammatory myofibroblastic tumor recurrence

Inflammatory myofibroblastic tumor (IMT) is an uncommon mesenchymal neoplasm of intermediate malignant potential. It may occur in various anatomic locations, but rarely in the rectum. This is a case discussion of a 36-year-old male patient with IMT of the rectum. After the patient underwent radical surgery, recurrence was seen after 18 months. Because the tumor was very close to the surrounding tissue, palliative tumor resection was performed followed by concurrent chemo-radiation and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID). After 2-year follow-up, the patient has no evidence of recurrence or metastasis. Surgical resection is very important for patient with rectal IMT, even in relapse cases. And adjuvant chemoradiotherapy and NSAID are in favor of the incompletely resected tumors as our case. But perhaps, the adjuvant treatments could be helpful after radical resection of rectal tumor.