Bypass arthritis and the blind intestinal loop.

Arthritis and other inflammatory processes are well established complications of intestinal bypass operations, and recently have been reported after other gastrointestinal procedures. Bacterial overgrowth in blind intestinal loops, actual or functional, appears to be the underlying pathophysiologic mechanism responsible for these systemic inflammatory disorders. In the case we have reported, arthritis was the primary manifestation of blind loop remaining after incomplete reversal of a jejunoileal bypass. Surgical elimination of the blind loop was curative.