Laparoscopic Excision of Retroperitoneal Schwannoma

Schwannomas are tumours that arise from the myelin sheath of the nerves. A very unusual location for schwannoma is the retro peritoneal areas (less than 2%). We present herewith a patient who had a 4x5cm Schwannoma arising from the nerve root of L2 on the right side, which presented as a lump in the psoas major muscle. This was treated by total laparoscopic excision after splitting open the psoas major. In the published english medical literature we could find only 16 cases of laparoscopic resection of retroperitoneal schwannoma and we believe ours to be the first case that was done through a psoas muscle split technique. Technical and histopathological details are discussed elaborately in this article.