Diffuse schwannoma involving the entire large bowel with huge extramural development: Report of a case

Schwannoma of the large bowel is a rare clinical entity, which has reported ly been recognized to arise from one place,vith a submucosal tumor morpholo gy, We present herein the unique case of a 25-year-old woman who suffered f rom a schwannoma diffusely involving the entire large intestine, The patien t complained of abdominal distension and imaging studies revealed a giant t umor occupying the whole abdomen, but no confirmed preoperative diagnosis c ould be made, A laparotomy proved the huge tumor detected preoperatively to be the markedly wall-thickened entire large bowel itself due to the diffus e extramural development of a neoplasm, but no other organs were involved. Biopsy specimens from the tumor were histologically diagnosed as benign sch wannoma, However, because of the possibility of malignancy, we later perfor med a fetal proctocolectomy followed by an ileal J-pouch-anai canal anastom osis. The final pathological diagnosis was also that of a benign schwannoma originating from the large intestine. The patient remains well without rec urrence 15 months after surgery, To the best of our knowledge, no such case of a schwannoma in the entire large bowel has yet been reported in the lit erature, and the pathogenesis of its occurrence remains unknown.