[Use of ultravist to examine the gastrointestinal tract in patients with emergency abdominal pathology]

The paper deals with the results of using the nonionic water soluble contrast agents ultravist 300 and ultravist 370 (Schoring, Germany) to examine the gastrointestinal tract (GIT) in 21 patients with acute abdominal abnormality. GIT contrasting was made in 9 patients in the early postoperative period and in 12 patients on their admission to the Institute. The examinations revealed the high contrast rate of the above agent when administered into the stomach and upper small intestine, which excluded failure of gastroenteroanastomic sutures and the sutured gastric wall in 2 patients, established, in terms of gastric displacement and deformity, left-sided subdiaphragmatic abscess, and in terms of transposition of a portion of the gastric fornix into the pleural cavity, rupture of the left diaphragm, and to exclude diaphragmatic rupture with closed abdominal injury. The revealed important quality of ultravist within a short time (1-2 hours) to contrast the small intestine and enter the colon enabled differential diagnosis to be made between complete and partial small intestinal ileus and between early comissural small intestinal ileus and postoperative intestinal paresis. Ultravist contrast studies allowed the authors to avoid an emergency operative intervention and to follow up the resolution of ileus during medical therapy.