The ileal diverticulum. Morpho-clinical and epidemiological study.

In two autopsy prospective studies, at the Prosectures of the Departmental Hospital and of the Pediatric Hospital in Cluj, we found an incidence of Meckel's diverticulum of 1.16%, 1.46% respectively. Besides, we have retrospectively followed the incidence of the ileal diverticulum during the laparatomies performed at the Pediatric Hospital in Cluj between 1981 and 1990 on an acute abdomen of a supposed appendicular cause. Consulting the pathological bulletins which registered 8,385 laparatomies we found 200 Meckel's diverticula. Of the 200 diverticula, 64 exhibited a pathological process and 136 were trophic, and we suppose that they were found incidentally (incidence of 1.63%, corrected incidence of 1.38%). Up to the age of 16, 4.5% of the diverticula were excised. In the 64 symptomatic cases of ileal diverticulum, 50 presented inflammatory complications, 10 were ulcero-hemorrhagic, two were obstructive, one diverticulum presented an entero-umbilical fistula and one displayed a hemorrhagic infarction. Seventeen of the 200 diverticula presented heterotopic tissues; 12 of the 17 cases were symptomatic; in 64.7% of the cases the heterotopic tissue was the gastric mucous coat. Out of 8,385 laparatomies performed on an acute abdomen of a supposed appendicular cause, in 64 cases the symptomatology was generated by a meckelian pathological process (0.76%). An acute appendicitis was concomitantly present in 22 of the 64 cases.