[Clinical aspects and therapy of spontaneous under-anticoagulants-occurring intramural intestinal hemorrhages]

Massive spontaneous "anticoagulant" hemorrhage in the bowel wall may cause an acute abdomen with signs of intestinal obstruction within a few hours. An operative revision is indicated if a barium study is not possible to secure this rare diagnosis and therefore other much commoner causes of an acute abdominal illness are not to be excluded. While out of 42 patients, in whom the hemorrhagic segment was resected, only two died as a probable result of the operation, several cases are known where a survival without laparotomy was unimaginable. The dangers of a laparotomy should not, therefore, be overemphasized.