Posttraumatic ischemic stenosis of the small bowel

In three patients, signs and symptoms developed of chronic, incomplete small-bowel obstruction three or more weeks after blunt abdominal trauma. At surgery, a stenotic segment of small bowel was found adjacent to a mesenteric rent that apparently devascularized the small bowel, leading to stenosis and mucosal ulceration. Resection of the stenotic small-bowel segment effected a cure in each patient. Posttraumatic strictures of the small bowel should be suspected in patients on whom and abdominal laparotomy was not performed at the time of injury and in whom signs and symptoms of incomplete small-bowel obstruction develop three of more weeks after blunt abdominal trauma.