Case Report
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. May 14, 2016; 22(18): 4604-4609
Published online May 14, 2016. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v22.i18.4604
Pseudo-Meigs’ syndrome secondary to metachronous ovarian metastases from transverse colon cancer
Kennoki Kyo, Atsushi Maema, Motoaki Shirakawa, Toshio Nakamura, Kenji Koda, Hidetaro Yokoyama
Kennoki Kyo, Atsushi Maema, Motoaki Shirakawa, Toshio Nakamura, Hidetaro Yokoyama, Department of Surgery, Fujieda Municipal General Hospital, Fujieda, Shizuoka 426-8677, Japan
Kenji Koda, Department of Pathology, Fujieda Municipal General Hospital, Fujieda, Shizuoka 426-8677, Japan
Author contributions: Kyo K served as an attending doctor for the patient, performed the surgery, and wrote the manuscript; Maema A, Shirakawa M, Nakamura T, Koda K and Yokoyama H were involved in editing the manuscript; and Koda K performed the pathological examination.
Supported by Fujieda Municipal General Hospital, Surugadai, Fujieda, Shizuoka, Japan.
Institutional review board statement: This study was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board of Fujieda Municipal General Hospital.
Informed consent statement: Informed consent was waived because the patient was deceased.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interest for this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Kennoki Kyo, MD, PhD, Department of Surgery, Fujieda Municipal General Hospital, 4-1-11 Surugadai, Fujieda, Shizuoka 426-8677, Japan. kkyo@vega.ocn.ne.jp
Telephone: +81-54-6461111 Fax: +81-54-6461122
Received: January 19, 2016
Peer-review started: January 21, 2016
First decision: February 18, 2016
Revised: March 2, 2016
Accepted: March 14, 2016
Article in press: March 14, 2016
Published online: May 14, 2016
Processing time: 105 Days and 10.9 Hours
Abstract

Pseudo-Meigs’ syndrome associated with colorectal cancer is extremely rare. We report here a case of pseudo-Meigs’ syndrome secondary to metachronous ovarian metastases from colon cancer. A 65-year-old female with a history of surgery for transverse colon cancer and peritoneal dissemination suffered from metachronous ovarian metastases during treatment with systemic chemotherapy. At first, neither ascites nor pleural effusion was observed, but she later complained of progressive abdominal distention and dyspnea caused by rapidly increasing ascites and pleural effusion and rapidly enlarging ovarian metastases. Abdominocenteses were repeated, and cytological examinations of the fluids were all negative for malignant cells. We suspected pseudo-Meigs’ syndrome, and bilateral oophorectomies were performed after thorough informed consent. The patient’s postoperative condition improved rapidly after surgery. We conclude that pseudo-Meigs’ syndrome should be included in the differential diagnosis of massive or rapidly increasing ascites and pleural effusion associated with large or rapidly enlarging ovarian tumors.

Keywords: Pseudo-Meigs’ syndrome; Colon cancer; Ascites; Pleural effusion; Ovarian metastasis

Core tip: Pseudo-Meigs’ syndrome associated with colorectal cancer is extremely rare. Here, we report a case of this syndrome secondary to metachronous ovarian metastases from transverse colon cancer. This patient complained of progressive abdominal distention and dyspnea preoperatively, but her postoperative condition improved rapidly after bilateral oophorectomies. We conclude that pseudo-Meigs’ syndrome should be included in the differential diagnosis of massive or rapidly increasing ascites and pleural effusion associated with large or rapidly enlarging ovarian tumors.