Conservative treatment of giant abdominal wall hematoma

A fifty-seven-year-old male patient on warfarin therapy presented to the emergency department with severe abdominal pain that had started after a cough episode and persisted for four days. Ultrasonography showed an extensive hematoma, 17x14x7 cm in size, but failed to determine whether it was located intra-abdominally or in the abdominal wall. Computed tomography confirmed the diagnosis of abdominal wall hematoma (25x21x10 cm). The patient was treated conservatively, and abdominal findings resolved progressively in three days. This case report illustrates that ultrasonography findings may sometimes be inconclusive and, in the early period, computed tomography may be required to confirm the diagnosis of abdominal wall hematomas. Giant abdominal wall hematomas can be successfully treated with conservative methods even physical findings of acute abdomen accompany the clinical picture. To our knowledge, this is the largest abdominal wall hematoma hitherto reported in the literature.