Surgical Treatment of Childhood Intussusception: Differences between 1970s and 1990s

ABSTRACT

To evaluate the differences between current and past surgical treatment of intussusception, the medical records of 48 intussusception patients who underwent surgical treatment over 4 years (1975-1978, Group A) were reviewed and compared to the medical records of 75 intussusception patients who underwent surgical treatment over 4 years (1995-1998, Group B). Sex ratio is male predominant in both group (2.7:1 vs 1.6:1) and mean age of operation is 6.7+/-5.0 month (Group A) and 8.1+/-7.0 month (Group B). Major symptoms and signs of both groups are vomiting, hematochezia and irritability. White blood cell count of peripheral blood in both groups had no significant difference (12,417+/-4,446/mm3 vs 12,297+/-4,531/mm3). In operation methods, group A had significantly higher bowel resection rate over group B (31.3% vs 14.7%, p<0.05). In group A, 2 patients were died after operation, but group B have no operative mortality. Admission period after operation is significantly short in Group B (7.5+/-2.7 day vs 5.4+/-2.1 day, p<0.01). These results suggest there were no significant difference in characters of patients between Group A and B. But surgical treatment of intussusception in 1990s was more conservative than that in 1970s. We expect that recent surgical treatment lead early recovery from operation and early discharge from hospital.