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A full-term infant presented with severe abdominal distention. Supine radiograph of the chest and abdomen show a large rim-calcified mass representing a meconium pseudocyst (Fig. 1, thick arrows). The irregular linear calcifications, mostly in the left upper quadrant, are calcified meconium in the peritoneal cavity adherent to bowel walls (small arrow). Surgical and pathological findings confirmed small bowel obstruction secondary to segmental volvulus with walled-off small-bowel perforation and pseudocyst formation.
Meconium peritonitis is caused by antenatal bowel perforation with spillage of meconium into the peritoneum causing a sterile peritonitis and formation of dystrophic calcifications [1]. Common causes of bowel obstruction and perforation include meconium ileus, bowel atresia, and segmental volvulus. When the extruded meconium becomes walled off, it can form a rim-calcified mass representing meconium pseudocyst [2].
References
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Lee YC, Chen CJ (2009) Meconium pseudocyst: a classical and successfully treated case. J Formos Med Assoc 108:247–252
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Open Access This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0), which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
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Douglas, D. Meconium pseudocyst. Pediatr Radiol 40 (Suppl 1), 105 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00247-010-1748-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00247-010-1748-x