Laparoscopic resection of a solitary cecal diverticulum

Cecal diverticulitis is an uncommon disorder that, unlike sigmoid diverticular disease, usually involves a solitary true diverticulum. The resulting pain is hard to distinguish from that of appendicitis or perforating carcinoma. The typical patient is male, Asian, and in the fourth decade of life. The following case is unusual in that the patient was a 50-year-old Caucasian woman, and the diverticulum was excised laparoscopically. To the author's knowledge, this is the first case in which laparoscopy has been used for this purpose.