Obstructing sigmoid cancer in a patient with a large, tender, non-reducible inguinal hernia: the obvious diagnosis is not always the correct one.

We present a 85-year-old patient with intestinal obstruction and a large, tender, non-reducible right inguinal hernia. He was operated with the presumed diagnosis of strangulated inguinal hernia. At surgery, a perforated obstructing sigmoid colon was diagnosed. A sigmoidectomy (Hartman procedure) and hernia repair (Bassini technique) was performed.