Retroperitoneal schwannoma preoperatively diagnosed as liver metastasis from colon cancer: A case report

BACKGROUND: Retroperitoneal schwannomas are rare. CASE PRESENTATION: We here report a case of 64-year-old woman who was referred to her local hospital for abdominal pain and found to have a palpable tumor. Computed tomography (CT) and colonoscopy revealed a combination of liver and colon lesions and colon cancer with a large liver metastasis was suspected. After neoadjuvant chemotherapy had proved ineffective for her presumed liver metastasis, the patient was referred to our hospital where we performed a simultaneous right hemicolectomy and extended left hepatic lobectomy. The pathological diagnoses were a colonic adenocarcinoma and retroperitoneal schwannoma immediately adjacent to the liver. CONCLUSIONS: Although liver metastasis should be the first provisional diagnosis in patients with advanced colon cancer, retroperitoneal schwannoma should also be suspected in the differential diagnosis of possible liver lesions. (C) 2019 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of IJS Publishing Group Ltd.