Free Stent in the Abdominal Cavity

The patient is a 70-year-old male with stenosing stage IV colorectal cancer who was hospitalized for scheduled stent placement. Twenty-four hours after the procedure, the patient presented intense abdominal pain and distension together with signs of peritoneal irritation. Abdominal CT showed pneumoperitoneum caused by perforation of the sigmoid colon by the stent (Fig. 1). Emergency laparotomy revealed generalized fecal peritonitis; part of the prosthesis was situated in the lumen and the remainder passed through the tumor and was free in the abdominal cavity (Fig. 2). A Hartmann procedure was performed with resection of the ileal loop adhered to the tumor.

Fig. 1

Fig. 2