EPIPLOIC APPENDAGITIS;

A rare cause of acute abdomen; computed tomographic & ultrasound features (Case reports & review of literature)

Abstract

Acute epiploic appendagitis is an uncommon cause of abdominal pain that has only recently been recognized. The
diagnosis of this condition primarily relies on cross-sectional imaging and is made most often on CT, although occasionally sonography
1 2- has been used . Epiploic appendages are fat- and blood vessel-containing outpouchings protruding from the serosal surface of the colon
4. They appear in the fifth month of fetal life and in an adult human, the average number of epiploic appendages is approximately 50-
2,3,5 100.They measure from 2-5 cm in length . Epiploic appendagitis is the inflammatory process of the epiploic appendage and has
primary and secondary types. Primary epiploic appendagitis (PEA) is the infarction and inflammation of an appendage because of torsion
or spontaneous venous thrombosis. PEA mimics acute abdominal diseases; thus, it must be distinguished from the secondary epiploic
2,3 appendagitis, which is caused by neighborhood inflammatory processes such as diverticulitis, appendicitis or cholecystitis . The most
common computed tomographic (CT) appearance of acute epiploic appendagitis is the presence of 1.5- to 3.5-cm-diameter fat-density
1 lesion with surrounding inflammatory changes abutting the anterior wall of the sigmoid colon .