Abstract

GONZALEZ-CHAVEZ, Mario Andrés; ASCENCIO-MARTINEZ, Marco Antonio; GONZALEZ-CHAVEZ, Alberto Manuel  and  GARCIA-OSOGOBIO, Sandra Minerva. Peritoneal loose bodies or peritoneal mice. Cir. gen [online]. 2021, vol.43, n.1, pp.36-39.  Epub Aug 15, 2022. ISSN 1405-0099.  https://doi.org/10.35366/103912.

Free peritoneal bodies are benign formations generally discovered incidentally during surgery or autopsies. It´s extremely rare to find free foreign bodies in the peritoneal cavity (there´s limited information on the incidence of free peritoneal bodies worldwide, it´s only known that they are more frequent in males with a male-female ratio 18:4 and than in most of them present between 50 and 70 years of age) mainly due to their low incidence and that they are mostly asymptomatic (the most accepted etiology theory proposes that they originate from twisted and infarcted epiploic appendages that detach from the serosa of the colon and gradually fibroses and calcifies. We present the clinical case of an 81-year-old patient with acute appendicitis in whom, as an incidental finding during exploratory laparotomy, three free peritoneal bodies were discovered (it was an incidental, unexpected finding, discovered during laparotomy, unrelated to acute appendicitis).

Keywords : Peritoneal loose body; epiploic appendages; omental appendices; peritoneal mice.