Benign tumors of the small intestine: preoperative evaluation with a barium infusion technique

During a seven year period 18 benign small intestinal tumors were histologically documented in patients referred to us for a small bowel study, using a barium infusion technique. These included seven leiomyomas, five adenomatous polyps, two Peutz-Jeghers hamartomas, one myoepithelial hamartoma, one lipoma, one Brunner's gland adenoma and one neurilemmoma. Ten of the patients were women and eight were men, with their ages ranging from 20 to 75 years (mean age 45 years). Presenting symptoms were gastrointestinal bleeding in 12, anemia in 9, abdominal pain in 4, partial intestinal obstruction in 3 and bloody diarrhea in one. The time elapsed from onset of symptoms to radiological diagnosis ranged between one month and seven years (mean time 16 months). Multiple lesions were encountered in four cases and solitary in fourteen. The site of involvement was the duodenum in 3 patients, the jejunum in 8 and the ileum in 7 of them. Main radiological appearances included solitary or multiple intraluminal filling defects, mass effect on neighbouring loops and dilation of intestinal loops proximally to the lesion. The primary tumor, in the form of a mass or other abnormality of the small intestine was identified in all study cases. Correlation with surgical or endoscopic findings showed that radiology depicted all single lesions, whereas multiple lesions were underestimated in one case. The individual morphological changes shown on examination of the resected specimens resembled the appearances on the barium study in all cases. However, enteroclysis missed four out of seven ulcers and a stalk in one of the five pedunculated lesions. A specific tumor-type diagnosis was reached preoperatively in eleven patients, it was suggestive in five and mistaken in two of them. Our experience indicates that enteroclysis is an effective means in evaluating patients with suspected benign small bowel tumors, preoperatively.