[Intestinal intussusception: easy diagnosis in the 21st Century? Outcome of five years experiences].

UNLABELLED

Intussusception is an entity well codify in pediatric surgery, with guidelines well defined since years in terms of imaging and procedures.

MATERIAL

From January '99 to Dec. '03, 25 children were admitted to the Department of Pediatric Surgery of the Children's Hospital of Milan. All the aspects related to the pathology have been evaluated in the study.

RESULTS

25 patients have been studied. 23/25 presented severe pain, 19/25 normal bowel movements in the last 3 hours and in 9/25 a mass were detected at clinical examination.19/25 were submitted to laparotomy after failure of reduction through barium enema, and in 17/19 a manual reduction were performed. Only 2 patients required a bowel resection with primary anastomosis. The analysis of the delay of diagnosis, the delta-T between beginning of the symptoms and first medical evaluation was of 16,23 h. (3-72), and the delta-T between the first evaluation and diagnosis was 18,7 h. The interval between diagnosis and surgery was of 4,3.

CONCLUSION

Authors believe that intussusception still represent a challenge for medical and surgical emergency team, supported by the data in literature. Imaging procedures must not be constricted in case of minimal suspicions of intestinal intussusception.