Most patients who ingest fish bones do not develop any complications. The small proportion of patients who do complicate, present with non-specific symptoms. A 64-year-old female patient presented with a 2-month history of abdominal pain. Following clinical evaluation and computed tomography scan of the abdomen, a provisional diagnosis of colon cancer was made. Histology of the resected bowel at hemicolectomy demonstrated a perforation by fish bone with an associated abscess. The case illustrates how fish bone perforation may mislead unsuspecting clinicians and may be misdiagnosed as colonic cancer.

bowel perforation; fish bone; hemicolectomy; colonic malignancy; abscess; computed tomography.