Rectal Cancer Patient Dies From Sepsis

Case Overview

This case involves a fifty-two-year-old female that was diagnosed with stage three cervical cancer. Approximately one year after her diagnosis, the patient began to experience blood in her stool, along with painful bowel movements. The patient was sent for a colonoscopy, and the consulting physician believed there was a mass causing extrinsic pressure on the rectum with resultant obstruction. The physician also performed a biopsy of the ulcerated mass that seemed to be eroding into the anterior rectal wall. Several weeks after the colonoscopy and biopsy procedure, the patient presented back to the hospital with extreme abdominal pain. She was found to have a perforated colon that required emergency surgery with the placement of an end colostomy. The patient never recovered due to a severely infected peritoneum that spread from the bowel leak. She died of complications from sepsis two weeks after her hospital admission.