Intestinal leiomyosarcoma as the cause of severe hemoperitoneum

Leiomyosarcomas represent 10-20% of malignant tumors in the small bowel and 1% of those located in the large bowel. These tumors have aspecific symptoms depending on their size, location and histology. Intestinal leiomyosarcomas may be the cause of numerous types of surgical emergency. We report 2 cases of intestinal leiomyosarcoma in the jejunum and transverse colon. Both were diagnosed during an emergency exploratory celiotomy. The clinical features on admission were similar to those of acute abdomen. The main cause of surgical emergency was an extremely rare complication of gastrointestinal leiomyosarcoma: a severe hemoperitoneum. We briefly describe the surgical emergencies caused by intestinal leiomyosarcomas as well as the surgical methods employed in these cases.