An unusual perforation of the colon: report of two cases.

We herein present two cases of a colorectal perforation due to uncommon reasons. First, we treated a 45-year-old woman for a stercoral perforation of the sigmoid colon. The pathognomonic etiology was a barium fecaloma originating from an upper gastrointestinal series 9 months before admission. The second case was a 46-year-old woman who was admitted with a perforation of the transverse colon. She had experienced perforations of the sigmoid colon at 32 years of age and of the rectum at 44 years of age, respectively. The second and third conditions were diagnosed to be idiopathic, and were histologically proven by an abrupt obliteration and a thinness of the colonic wall with some infiltration of inflammatory cells. The first condition, however, was most likely a stercoral perforation. The postoperative course of these patients was uneventful, and both are doing well at this writing.