Diagnosis of an Inguinal Hernia after a Blunt Inguinal Trauma with an Intestinal Perforation

Introduction. Inguinal hernias are very common in men. A clinical exam can do the diagnosis easily. But bowel perforation inside an inguinal hernia caused by a directly blunt trauma is rare and can have important consequences. Up to now, there have been a few case reports that described blunt injury...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Farès Moustafa, Julien Avouac, Marie-Aude Vaz, Jeannot Schmidt
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Hindawi Limited 2014-01-01
Series:Case Reports in Emergency Medicine
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/653847
Description
Summary:Introduction. Inguinal hernias are very common in men. A clinical exam can do the diagnosis easily. But bowel perforation inside an inguinal hernia caused by a directly blunt trauma is rare and can have important consequences. Up to now, there have been a few case reports that described blunt injury to the inguinal area causing traumatic perforation of the bowel in the inguinal hernia. Case Report. We present a case of a 45-year-old Eastern European man with a small perforation of ileal bowels and a peritonitis after direct blunt trauma to the inguinal hernia region, with no inguinal hernia known by the patient, and show how the diagnosis can be difficult. Conclusion. This case shows that external forces, that may seem too trivial to cause intraperitoneal injury, can cause significant injury when applied to a patient with a hernia and shows how a careful examination, with the help of an abdominal CT scan, is important even if the patient do not seem to have an inguinal hernia.
ISSN:2090-648X
2090-6498