Complications of Meckel diverticulum in children

Meckel diverticulum is a rare and often latent pathology. Clinical manifestations are those of complications revealing this anomaly, whose diagnosis is essentially intraoperative; imaging examinations are not contributory. The aim of this work is to report the experience of the University Hospital of Casablanca through an epidemiological, clinical and therapeutic analysis of cases of children admitted for Meckel diverticulum between January 2017 and December 2023. The average age of patients was 4 years and 40% of complications were observed during the first year of life. The variable symptomatology explains the delay in management, which can go up to 9 days. The main revealing complications are intestinal invagination (60%) and intestinal occlusion (30%), these being observed with a clear male predominance with a sex ratio of 2.3. The surgical treatment consisted of a segmental resection followed by an anastomosis: the anatomo-pathological analysis highlighted two cases of heterotopia. In summary, Meckel diverticulum, although rare, must be present in the mind of the surgeon and benefit from a codified management because of complications related to mucous heterotopias.