Intussusception due to intestinal metastasis from lung cancer

Abstract

Intestinal metastasis from lung primary is very uncommon and seen at the terminal stage of the disease. Clinically, patients present as perforation or bleeding and rarely as intussusception. We report the case of a 78-year-old man who came with sudden onset of abdominal complaints of four to five days duration. A computerized tomography (CT)--scan abdomen showed mural thickening of short loop of jejunum with ileoileal intussusception. Resection-anastomosis revealed two separate nodules in the small intestine. The patient, a diagnosed case of primary carcinoma of lung seven months ago, had been treated with one cycle of chemotherapy. Histopathology of the small intestinal nodules showed features of adenocarcinoma consistent with the known primary lung cancer. We present this case to arouse a clinical suspicion of intestinal metastasis in known cases of primary lung cancer presenting with the sudden onset of abdominal complaints. Early diagnosis and management improves the survival of these patients.