Endometriosis of the Terminal Ileum: A Diagnostic Dilemma

Copyright © 2012 Kerem Karaman et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Endometriosis is characterized by the presence of endometrial tissue consisting of glands and/or stroma located outside the uterus. Involvement of the terminal ileum is extremely rare. Preoperative distinction of ileal endometriosis from other diseases of the ileocecal region is difficult in terms of clinical presentation, symptomatology, radiological appearance, and surgical and pathological findings. We report a case initially diagnosed as Crohn’s disease due to a longstanding diarrhea with subsequent intestinal obstruction, but finally diagnosed as ileal endometriosis by histopathological evaluation after resection of the involved segment. 1