[Peritoneal splenosis 26 years after traumatic splenic rupture--rare differential diagnosis of a subepithelial gastric mass--case report and review of the literature].

Differential diagnoses of subepithelial gastric masses include benign (leiomyoma, lipoma, haemangioma, lymphangioma, neurogenic tumours, glomus tumour) and malignant (leiomyosarcoma, gastric Kaposi's sarcoma, metastases) neoplastic lesions, gastrointestinal stromal tumours (GIST) and lesions of non-neoplastic origin (heterotopic pancreatic tissue, intramural pseudocysts, intramural haematoma). Occasionally, however, suspected gastric wall tumours are caused by extragastral lesions that are not always easily distinguished from genuine gastric wall lesions by endoscopy or radiological imaging. We report the case of a 77-year-old patient undergoing laparoscopy for suspected gastric GIST in our institution in whom splenectomy had been performed 26 years prior to presentation due to traumatic splenic rupture. The tumour revealed to be ectopic splenic tissue located at the parietal peritoneum of the ventral abdominal wall, thereby fulfilling the definition of splenosis. Epidemiology, pathogenesis, diagnostics and therapy of splenosis are discussed in the context of a review of the relevant literature.