Experience with gastro-intestinal duplications in childhood

Intestinal duplications are rare congenital malformations. The different locations and sizes of these duplications require a specific diagnostic and surgical approach. This study reviews our paediatric patients with intestinal duplications in order to analyse the influence of prenatal sonography and laparoscopy on the clinical course.

Thirteen duplications of the alimentary tract in 12 patients have been treated over a 10-year period from 1989 to 1999. Six of our patients were diagnosed prenatally by ultrasound and were free of symptoms until surgery, except for one patient who had meconium-ileus owing to cystic fibrosis. In another five patients, the diagnosis was made on the basis of symptoms with signs of obstruction. In one child, the duplication was found incidentally during an operation for an anorectal malformation. The location of the 13 duplications was the stomach in three cases, the duodenum in one case, the jejunum in two cases, the ileum in six cases and the rectum in one case. Laparotomy was performed in ten patients. Two cases were treated by laparoscopic-assisted resection.

Early diagnosis and treatment of uncomplicated intestinal duplications by means of prenatal sonographic screening and laparoscopic-assisted resection, respectively, are desirable in this congenital malformation. Resection of the duplication with or without minimal resection of the adjacent normal intestine should be mandatory.