IMAGES IN EMERGENCY MEDICINE
Small bowel obstruction
Epsom General Hospital, Surrey, UK
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
T Agarwal
Epsom General Hospital, Dorking Road, Surrey KT18 7EG, UK; trish_agarwal@yahoo.co.uk
Accepted 10 April 2006
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Small bowel obstruction in children is uncommon; however, if improperly managed, it can lead to bowel ischaemia, necrosis, perforation and death. A 4-year-old boy presented with 4 days of vomiting, absolute constipation and diffuse abdominal pain. His abdomen was grossly distended, with subdued bowel sounds. An abdominal x ray showed several distended small bowel loops (fig 1
). Laparotomy showed an internal hernia caused by a mesodiverticular band that created a snare-like opening through which a loop of bowel had herniated and become obstructed. Fortunately, the bowel was still viable, so the Meckel’s diverticulum and the mesodiverticular band were resected and the hernia was reduced. Mortality for small bowel obstruction may reach 65% if >75% of the small bowel is necrotic at the time of laparotomy (http://www.emedicine.com/ped/topic1203.htm). In our case prompt treatment was given when the bowel was still viable, hence preventing any serious complications.
Figure 1 Abdominal x ray | |||||||||
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Reddit 
Technorati What's this?
- Full Text
- Full Text (PDF)
- Submit a response
- Alert me when this article is cited
- Alert me when eLetters are posted
- Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
- Email this link to a friend
- Similar articles in this journal
- Similar articles in PubMed
- Add article to my folders
- Download to citation manager
- Request Permissions
Citing Articles
Google Scholar
PubMed
Topic Collections
Bookmark with
Register for free content
The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.
Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.
