[Balloon ileus as an unusual complication of enteral tube feeding].

Total enteric feeding through a filiform indwelling catheter is being used more and more. Various indwelling catheters have been developed for this purpose, one of them a catheter (Salvisond) which has a "pulling" balloon, for advancing the catheter tip through the stomach into the small intestine, while a retaining balloon is inflated, once the tip has reached its final location, to prevent its dislocation. In a patient with Crohn's disease the retaining balloon, for unforeseeable and unexplained reasons, expanded further in situ and could not be deflated, causing a small-intestinal ileus and requiring operative removal of the catheter.