[Organ torsion and abdominal symptoms--case reports]

Torsions are rare acute abdominal conditions and are mistaken for other more frequent diseases. The present work draws attention to the most frequent diagnostic errors. The authors present three cases of torsions of intraabdominal organs and two cases of testicular torsion. All patients attended their doctor because of abdominal pain. In four of five cases the patients were first treated for an erroneous diagnosis of acute abdomen. In the first case the torsion of the omentum was mistaken for diverticulitis of the sigmoid, later for an intraperitoneal lipoma, in he second case for cholecystitis, in the third case a patient with torsion of a myoma was indicated for surgery on account of acute appendicitis. In the fourth case incomplete torsion of the testis was mistaken for irritation of the appendix. In the fifth case where abdominal symptomatology dominated the correct diagnosis of testicular torsion was made and atypically spontaneous detorsion of the testis occurred.