I was unable to get the link I pasted to work correctly because you’d have to register with the site and decided to just put the info here instead since I could also put the images here as well.  Because each image is at the max size I will put the first here and the second two in the next posts below. 

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/749079_2

A 64-year-old Indian man was referred with complaints of abdominal pain, vomiting and not passing flatus or feces for four days. Our patient’s general condition was poor; he was febrile, with a pulse rate of 124/minute and blood pressure 90 mm/Hg. X-rays of his abdomen showed multiple air fluid levels suggestive of acute intestinal obstruction. With the provisional diagnosis of acute abdomen (acute intestinal obstruction) our patient was resuscitated and sent for an urgent laparotomy. On exploration, our patient had severely dilated small gut loops with the terminal ileal loop twisted around the omental band and adherent to his left pelvic wall. On releasing the omental band, the ileal loop was dissected free from his left pelvic wall. Once the loops had been released, we found a large, white, oval shaped, extra-luminal body in the region of his sigmoid colon (Figure 1). The body was soft to firm in consistency (resembling a boiled hen’s egg) and attached (parasitized) to the omentum (Figure 2). In addition, part of the appendices epiploicae, attached to his sigmoid colon, were calcified with constricted stalks. The peritoneal loose body was largely parasitized to the omentum with a separate feeding vessel supplying it from the omentum.

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Figure 1.

Macrograph showing location of the ‘boiled egg’ (Giant loose peritoneal body) in the abdomen which was something of a surprise to the operating surgeon during exploration and adhesiolysis for acute intestinal obstruction.

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Figure 2.

Macrograph showing giant peritoneal loose body parasitized to omentum. The macrograph clearly shows the giant loose body attached to omentum and a separate twig from omentum supplying to loose peritoneal body.

The body was an oval shaped mass, measuring 7 cm in length and 5 cm in width, and weighed 74 g. On the cut surface, it had classic appearance like a boiled egg, with a distinct white peripheral part and yellow central part (Figure 3). The white part was smooth and soft in consistency while the central yellow part was slightly firm in the periphery and hard (calcified) at the central point. The surfaces were smooth and shiny. On histological examination, it consisted of laminated strands of a fibrinoid substance with a large amount of proteinaceous material in the peripheral white part (boiled albumin with a high collagen deposition) and saponified fat with calcification in the central yellow part.

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Figure 3.

Macrograph of giant loose body (cut surface) showing peripheral white & central yellow portions resembling a boiled egg.

Our patient did well post-operatively; he resumed his oral diet on the third post-operative day. He was discharged from the hospital five days after the operation.

second image

third image

So, was it an egg then? It doesn’t quite look like one. He should of had the Snickers salad.

Based on [the Hoax Museum front page story] what was coming out of the dogs ‘lay eggs’ and that:

A large mongrel cur, it laid many large eggs via the anus. After each of these strange births, it seemed weak and exhausted, but it soon recovered from its recent confinement and jumped around its master, who showed it as a curiosity. To impress the spectators, and to demonstrate that the eggs were genuine, the enterprising Austrian broke one of the dog’s eggs, fried it in a pan, and ate it.

and further translation by Alex from a latin source:

This is indeed a marvel, which Jungius, of the Academy of the Curious, has told (in Ephemeriden, Vol 1:2) of the egg-laying dog—a dog which had devoured some food prepared by a country woman for her hens in order to make them lay larger and more numerous eggs. Following his master on a journey, the dog then was seen by many spectators to lay some eggs, one after another, excreting them through its anus. After which it was greatly tired, but the food having been removed, it was restored to its former vigor. (See Thesaurus Practicus adauct. by Besoldi, p.389). A friend told me a similar story. And we have heard a similar story about a dog in Westphalia that vomited eggs from its mouth. Were these true eggs? Who can believe it!

This reminded me of some horrendous parasitic ‘ailments’ or conditions I saw while living well outside the United States so I was prompted to do the search.  That the dogs showed obvious malaise surrounding the expelling was also telling.  The gentleman in my found article was not able to to have a bowel movement or hadn’t been able for several days.  It’s possible that he may have been able to expel something over a longer period of time but I think getting to the hospital was a better decision on his part.  At any rate the sameness of these events along with the fact that dogs do not ‘lay eggs’ [which isn’t birth at all either but closer to a mensus in humans] leads me to believe that the parasitic condition is probably the same.

So what was this thing? The article describes it as being “parasitized” to the wall of the guy’s gut. But it doesn’t sound like it was a living parasite. From the description it sounds like some kind of bizarre fatty growth.

Probably a tumor or even a parasitic twin.

Myself, I had a gallstone the size and shape of a hen’s egg (protip: they usually remove your gallbladder when stones get to *marble* size…), so who knows.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3146931/

Introduction
Peritoneal loose bodies, or peritoneal mice, are rare asymptomatic lesions that are usually found as an incidental finding during abdominal surgery or autopsy. Giant loose bodies, measuring more than 5 cm, are rare and only a few cases are reported in the literature. These bodies are usually infarcted appendices epiploicae, which become detached and appear as a peritoneal loose body in the abdominal cavity. They may re-attach themselves to a surface, such as the lower aspect of the spleen or omentum, in which case they can be called a “parasitized peritoneal body”, as in our case.

Conclusion
Peritoneal loose bodies are common but giant peritoneal loose bodies are very rare. These giant bodies usually do not require any treatment until they become complicated. Present diagnosis modalities have limitations in the diagnosis of mobile lesions in the abdominal cavity, so care must be taken to avoid unnecessary laparotomies in uncomplicated cases.

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Introduction
Peritoneal loose bodies are rare and found incidentally at laparotomy. In most cases they are small in size (usually less than 1 cm). Giant loose bodies (more than 5 cm) are very rare and only a few cases have been reported in the literature [1-10]. Its exact pathogenesis is not known but the most common origin of these bodies are appendices epiploicae (by the sequential process of torsion, infarction, saponification and calcification) [1,2].
These loose bodies are usually incidental findings that do not require any specific treatment until they become complicated [3-6]. Generally, computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are useful for diagnosis of these lesions; however present literature shows the limitation in the diagnosis of movable masses by CT and MRI [2,7]. We report a case of a giant loose peritoneal body with special reference to the genesis of such large bodies and also discuss the problems in diagnosis.

I wish I hadn’t read this immediately after lunch. 

Maegan - 27 September 2011 09:50 AM

I wish I hadn’t read this immediately after lunch. 

Did you have the egg mayonnaise?