Related Experiment Videos
[Etiology of intestinal occlusion]
1Departamento de Cirugía General, Dirección General de Cirugía, Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Médicas y Nutrición Salvador Zubirán, México, D. F. lgarzav@quetzal.innsz.mx
Background:
Intestinal obstruction is one of the leading causes of admission to emergency wards around the world, and its etiology has changed over the past century.
Aim:
The goal of this study was to ascertain the causes of intestinal obstruction at our Institution and compare the results with other reports of Mexican, U.S., and Canadian hospitals.
Methods:
Retrospective review of a cohort of patients with intestinal obstruction operated on between 1985 and 2000. Demographic data and operative findings were obtained.
Results:
Our cohort included 452 patients, 55.3% were women; mean age for the entire group was 54 years. The obstruction was located in the small bowel in 86.9% of cases and the leading causes were adhesions (58.6%), hernia (16.1%) and neoplasia (13.9%). Other etiologic factors had a low incidence that varied between 4.4 and 0.22%.
Conclusions:
The most common causes of intestinal obstruction are similar to those reported in the U.S., British and Canadian medical literature. Some tertiary-level Mexican institutions showed the same incidence of etiology, but some large general hospitals in Mexico City showed etiologic factors reported 100 years ago by the current so-called developed countries, i.e., that the same socioeconomic conditions existed in both population groups nearly a century apart.