Shutaro Ozawa

Unusual nontuberculous mycobacterium infection of the rectum.

1 ver, inversion also may deform the cecal wall and cause confusion in the interpretation of subsequent radiologic studies. ypically, an inverted appendix is a uniformly smooth, 3-to-5– cm long “polyp” in the area of the appendix and is covered with ormal mucosa. An inverted stump looks similar but is usually shorter and somewhat stubby. Rarely, appendiceal stumps can arbor malignancies and even bleed years after appendectomy. The frequency of such occurrences is not sufficiently high, in y opinion, to warrant routine appendiceal “stumpectomy,” even though endoscopic removal should be safe because the erosal orifice has been closed surgically. I would invoke the idiomatic advice to let sleeping dogs lie, a phrase coined by haucer around 1380 in Troilus and Criseyde as: “It is nought good a slepyng hound to wake.” Why this patient’s symptoms mproved after the procedure I do not know, but to quote Joseph Bigelow, author of the first American textbook on botany, “It s common error to infer that things which are consecutive in order of time have necessarily the relation of cause and effect.” Lawrence J. Brandt, MD Associate Editor for Focal Points