Small bowel perforation due to indistinguishable metastasis of angiosarcoma: case report and brief literature review

Intestinal metastasis of angiosarcoma is extremely rare. We herein report a case of intestinal perforation due to intestinal metastasis of angiosarcoma. The patient was a 72-year-old Japanese man with multiple recurrent angiosarcomas of the scalp. He developed acute abdominal pain with guarding, and we performed an emergency exploratory laparotomy. An intestinal perforation was found 80 cm from the ligament of Treitz, and partial jejunectomy was successfully performed. Macroscopic inspection revealed no obvious injury, ulcer, or tumor at or around the perforation site. Pathological examination revealed angiosarcoma cells penetrating through all layers of the jejunum at the site of intestinal perforation. This is the first reported case of intestinal perforation caused by indistinguishable intestinal metastasis of angiosarcoma. This case emphasizes intestinal metastasis of angiosarcoma as a possible cause of small bowel perforation in patients with advanced angiosarcoma, even when no visible tumor is present during surgery.