[Abdominal splenosis]

Abstract

Splenosis is a common benign finding that occurs after splenic trauma or after splenectomy. It is auto-transplantation of splenic tissue and can be seen intra-abdominally, intra-thoracically and even subcutaneously. Splenosis is usually found incidentally at laparoscopy, laparotomy or on radiological examination and is mostly asymptomatic. Treatment is only required if a patient complains of abdominal pain, obstruction or bleeding. On radiological examination splenosis can mimic a metastatic malignant disease. For this reason it is important to recognise splenosis and know the patient's medical history concerning splenic trauma or splenectomy, thus avoiding diagnostic laparoscopy or ultrasound guided biopsy. This paper presents two patients with splenosis. Additionally, we describe how to diagnose this entity by scintigraphy with (99m) Technetium-labelled heat-denatured erythrocytes.