Abstract
A 63-year-old man complained of hematochezia, and was referred to our hospital with a diagnosis of rectal cancer. Preoperative examination of enhanced CT and 3D-CT angiography revealed the inferior mesenteric artery arising from the superior mesenteric artery. Laparoscopic high-anterior resection was performed for this patient. The postoperative course was uneventful, and the patient was discharged on postoperative day 6. The pathological diagnosis was tubular adenocarcinoma (moderately differentiated type), type 2, tumor size 64×39 mm, pT3, pN0 (0/34), Stage II. The patient was disease-free after 1 year. Between 2007 and 2014, a total of 1516 cases were treated for cancer of the left colon and rectum in our hospital, and only one case showed abnormality of the inferior mesenteric artery arising from the superior mesenteric artery. We report this extremely rare case.
