Yassine Tlili, Zied Hadrich, Houda Gazzah, Montacer Hafsi*, Mohamed Hajri and Sahir Omrani
Received: January 30, 2024; Published: February 12, 2024
*Corresponding author: Montacer Hafsi, Department of General Surgery, Mongi Slim University Hospital, Faculty of medicine of Tunis, Tunisia
DOI: 10.26717/BJSTR.2024.55.008638
Keywords: Mesenteric Panniculitis; Mesentery; Resection
We report the case of a 61-year-old woman, with no past medical or surgical history, who consulted for an occlusive syndrome. On examination, she had no fever; her abdomen was distended and showed subumbilical tenderness. Laboratory tests revealed a marked biological inflammatory syndrome. Abdominal CT revealed a distended small bowel upstream of a regular thickening of the last ileal loop which showed an enhancement defect, densification of the mesenteric fat with distortion of the vessels within it and a comb-like appearance of the mesentery suggestive of mesenteric panniculitis (MP) (Figure 1). The patient underwent urgent surgery. Intraoperatively, there was diffuse nodular thickening of the mesentery; sclerolipomatosis; a necrotic last ileal loop with a highly inflammatory aspect of the penultimate loop (Figure 2). She underwent ileocaecal resection, removing the pathological loops with a double stoma (Figure 3). The postoperative follow-up was simple. Pathological examination of the surgical specimen revealed mesenteric lipodystrophy and patchy fibrosis without carcinomatous cells, confirming the diagnosis of MP. Mesenteric panniculitis is a rare chronic inflammatory disease characterized by degeneration, inflammation and fibrosis of the adipose tissue of the mesentery.
The etiology of the disease remains poorly understood, but it is often associated with a variety of conditions, including abdominal surgery, mesenteric ischemia, cancer, trauma, obesity and abdominal inflammatory disease [1]. Abdominal CT are essential for both positive and differential diagnosis [2]. Surgery is indicated to treat obstructive complications and served for histological diagnosis [1].