Doctors discover 10cm ball of fat after patient complained of frequently needing the loo

April 3, 2015  17:42

A 62-year-old man was found to have a giant ‘boiled egg’ inside him, pressing on his bladder and causing him to constantly need the loo.

The man came to hospital complaining he had felt a frequent urge to urinate for more than 20 years.

Doctors examined him physically and sent samples away to the laboratory, but found nothing out of the ordinary.

Reporting his case in the New England Journal of Medicine, they said a CT scan of his abdomen revealed a giant mass pressing on the bladder.

They sent a camera into his abdomen and, curiously, found a lump they described as ‘free-floating, smooth, firm and rubbery’.

The mass measured an incredible 10cm in length and was by 7.5cm wide.
It weighed 220g, which is heavier than a large orange.

Doctors said the lump, which looked like a giant boiled egg, was a ‘peritoneal loose body’.

This a mass that is thought to form when epiploic appendages - when pouches of fat wrapped in the colon’s membrane – are twisted away so they become detached and loose.

They transform into fibrous lumps and become calcified.

In previous reports in the same journal, doctors say that any giant loose mass more than 5cm wide is rare, and there are only a few reports in medical literature.

The peritoneal loose bodies often have no symptoms when they are small.

But when large enough, they can obstruct the bowel, block the bladder and cause retention of urine, or – as in this case, the sensation of needing the loo.

After having the mass surgically removed, the man no longer felt like he needed to urinate frequently.

Doctors then dyed the mass with green ink to show the different layers.

It contained a layer of fibrous tissue, protein and fibrous material in the centre surrounded by a ring of calcified tissue.

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