Author(s)

Mohammed Choudhury, Michael Vassallo

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Background: An elderly lady presented with dyspnoea due to congestive cardiac failure. She was subsequently noted to have cervi-cal subcutaneous emphysema. Post mortem identified an occult perforation of a sigmoid diverticulum. Cervical subcutaneous em-physema is a recognised complication of gastrointestinal perforation; however, it is normally associated with upper gastrointestinal pathology, procedure related or sequel of existing disease. Summary: A perforated sigmoid diverticulum is a very rare cause of cer-vical subcutaneous emphysema. In this patient, signs and symptoms of peritonism were also late in onset and the location of the per-foration was not found despite high resolution imaging being used.

Subcutaneous, Emphysema, Perforation, Diverticulum

M. Choudhury and M. Vassallo, "Cervical Subcutaneous Emphysema; Sequelae from Occult Perforation of Sigmoid Diverticulum," International Journal of Clinical Medicine, Vol. 1 No. 2, 2010, pp. 78-80. doi: 10.4236/ijcm.2010.12015.