Rectal inflammatory fibroid polyp in a Nigerian: case report & brief review of literature.

BACKGROUND Inflammatory fibroid polyps are very unusual gastrointestinal tumours. Furthermore, their occurrence in the rectum is a rarity indeed. OBJECTIVE To document this very rare pathologic entity in a patient from our region of Africa and highlight some pertinent clinical and pathologic aspects of the disease. CASE REPORT We present a 59 year old Nigerian who had neither significant previous medical history nor current complaint and had a routine colonoscopy done. The finding in the rectum was of a small polypoidal mass which was excised whole and whose histopathologic findings were consistent with a diagnosis of inflammatory fibroid polyp. CONCLUSION A unique case of rectal inflammatory fibroid polyp in a Nigerian is hereby presented. This, to the best of our knowledge, is the first such documented case from our region of the world. Hence, the entity should be considered in the differential diagnosis of colonic polyps from the continent.