Incarcerated Spigelian hernia mimicking obstructing colon carcinoma

Spigelian hernia is a ventral abdominal hernia that only rarely causes incarceration or strangulation of the bowel. There are few reports in the surgical literature of colonic obstruction secondary to incarcerated Spigelian hernia. In this paper, we present a patient with an incarcerated sigmoid colon in a Spigelian hernia sac, mimicking on contrast enema an obstructing carcinoma. Accurate diagnosis was made pre-operatively by computed tomography (CT), and the hernia was repaired by polypropylene mesh in a tension-free manner.