gen surg: textbook case

Here is another couple of cases. This 58y.o. male presented with some rectal bleeding and constipation. He had no fever, no white blood count but some 10 pound weight drop in the last couple weeks. Below is the actual imaging results. There is barium enema and it shows as I added to the xray below-- what we call an apple core lesion. You can see how the barium (white color)  narrows in part of the colon- it narrows to the size of an apple core because there is a tumor that is blocking most of the lumen.  This is usually a sure fire sign of colon cancer. It was strange to see this on the computer because its basically right out of our text books. You should also notice in the right upper part of the picture the obvious loops of bowel that are full of air. This is called "ladder rungs" and it indicated an intestinal tract obstruction (probably caused because the poo can't pass the cancer. We took him to surgery the next day, took out the part that was full of tumor and he is doing well, cancer free.