CT Findings of Benign Omental Lesions Following Abdominal Cancer Surgery

Abstract

The greater omentum is frequently involved in the intra-abdominal dissemination of gastrointestinal and ovarian malignancies, either during primary seeding or as a site of recurrent cancer after surgical treatment (1-4). Therefore, the greater omentum, historically, was totally resected during surgery for abdominal cancer. However, several studies of omentum-preserving operations show a lower rate of postoperative complications and no statistically significant difference in patient survival, as compared with total omentectomy (5-7). Therefore, the use of omentum-preserving operations has recently been increasing, especially for gastric cancer surgery. However, a variety of benign lesions of traumatic, inflammatory, vascular, or systemic origin can occur in the remnant omentum. Various findings are visible on computed tomography (CT), including hazy stranding, nodules, mass formation, and diffuse infiltration. In this article, we review the CT findings of a variety of benign omental lesions after abdominal cancer surgery. The appearances of benign omental lesions on CT are classified into four categories, according to the etiopathogenic mechanism: 1) traumatic omental lesions; 2) inflammatory omental lesions; 3) vascular omental lesions; and 4) omental lesion from systemic causes.