Massive liver metastasis from colon adenocarcinoma causing cardiac tamponade

Abstract

Colorectal cancer is the third most commonly diagnosed cancer in the United States.1 About 5% of Americans will be diagnosed with colorectal cancer in their lifetime, of which 20% will present with distant metastasis.2 e most common sites of metastasis are regional lymph nodes, liver, lung and peritoneum, and patients may present with signs or symptoms related to disease burden at any of these organs. In this case, we present a patient with metastatic colorectal cancer to liver who developed cardiac tamponade due to extrinsic compression from an enlarging liver lesion. We are not aware of this unusual complication being reported elsewhere in the literature and we discuss our approach to this challenging case.