J Korean Soc Emerg Med.  1998 Jun;9(2):330-335.

Pediatric Intussusception Presenting to Emergency Room

• Lee WY
• Jeong YK

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Intussuseception is one of the most common diseases requiring abdominal emergency care in early childhood. The delay in diagnosis increases morbidity and, in particular, reduces the success rate of the non-surgical method of reduction. In this report, the authors determined the clinical characteristics of pediatric patients with intussusception, and the factors involved in delayed diagnosis and the efficacy of doppler ultrasonography in diagnosis.
METHODS
The authors performed a retrospective study of 44 cases in 42 patients with intussusception who had visited the emergency room of SamSung medical center from January 1st to December 31, 1996.
RESULTS
The sex ratio was equal and 64.3% of the patients were under 1 year of age. The prevalent complaints were vomiting(36.4%) and abdominal pain(33.8%). Ultrasonography was used in 11 cases, 3 of them were performed because of obscure symptoms and the rest were due to diagnostic delay. The average time past from visit to diagnosis was 4 hours and 20 minutes, and there were 4 diagnostic delays. Air enema reductions were unsucessful in 11 cases(25%) and that was related to hospital-visit delays and long time past from symptom onset to diagnosis. There were no motalities.
CONCLUSION
To reduce delays in diagnosis and unnecessary operations, the use of doppler ultrasonography is recommanded in suspicious cases. And to reduce the hospital-visit delays, related to the failure on non-surgical reduction, the education about this disease is necessary.

MeSH Terms

Delayed Diagnosis
Diagnosis
Education
Emergencies*
Emergency Medical Services
Emergency Service, Hospital*
Enema
Humans
Intussusception*
Retrospective Studies
Sex Ratio
Ultrasonography
Ultrasonography, Doppler