[Non-occlusive ischemic enteropathy--diagnosis, differential diagnosis and therapy]

Reduced cardiac output is the pathogenetic principle of non-occlusive disease. Prerequisites for early diagnosis include anamnesis, clinical and laboratory findings, sonography, mesentericography, contrast enema, and coloscopy. Conservative treatment with vasoactive drugs is promising in early stages. As the abdominal symptoms develop latently, laparotomy is indicated in most cases in order to identify necrosis or perforation and to allow surgery according to the intraoperative findings. Despite indisputable progress made during the past years, the death rate in our patients (n = 42) is still 43%. Only early diagnosis and consequential therapy can achieve better results.