The material in this report is based on 309 cases of intestinal obstruction, which was treated surgically at the department of Surgery, Busan National University Hospital during 10 years from January 1974 to December 1983.
The results of the study were obtained as follows:
1) The most frequent age group was within 1 year in cases of 106(34.3%), the next was from 1 to 10 years in cases of 41(13.3%). Male to female sex ratio was 2: 1.
2) The common causes of intestinal obstruction were postoperative adhesion (38.5%), intus-susception (30.7%), volvulus (9. 1%), congenital megacolon (8.4%).
3) The locations of intestinal obstruction were 79.0% in the small bowel and 21.0% in the large bowel.
4) The cardinal symptoms and signs were abdominal pain in 79.9%, vomiting in 68.6%, abdominal distension in 66.3%, abdominal tenderness in 59.2%.-
5) Preoperative leukocytosis was noted in 61.5%, and hemoconcentration was noted in
24.3%.
6) The positive signs for the diagnosis of intestinal obstruction on simple x-ray study were present in 86.9% of 290 cases.
7) Among the past history of the 119 cases of postoperative adhesion, most prevalent history was appendectomy (32. 8%), and pelvic surgery (21.9%), small bowel surgery (17. 6%), stomach surgery (10.9%) in orders.
8) In the operative procedures, 102 cases (33.0%) were treated by adhesiolysis and bandlysis, 81 cases (26.2%) by manual reduction and 69 cases (22.3%) by resection or primary anastomosis of small intestine.
9) The incidence of postoperative complication was in 86 cases (27.8%). The most common complication following surgery was wound infection (40.7%), and pneumonia and atelectasis (20.9%), wound disruption (12. 8%), recurrent obstruction(8. 1%), and sepsis(7.0%) in orders.
10) Overall mortality rate was 6.1%(19 cases out of 309 cases), and the most common cause of death was sepsis (31.6%).
The highest mortality rate related to cause was intususception (36.8%), and the next was congenital band and malrotation (15. 8%) and postoperative adhesion (15.8%). The mortality rate related to age was highest in the age group under 1 year (63.2%). The mortality rate of strangulated obstruction (10.4%) was higher than that of simple obstrubtion (5.0%). The mortality rate of resected group was 21. 1% and that of nonresected group was 1.7%.
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