Intestinal Infarction

Thirty patients had hemorrhagic intestinal infarction following gastroenteritis, septicemia, and endotoxic shock. Twenty-seven were below 2 years of age. The outstanding clinical data were as follows: diarrhea followed by intestinal obstruction, fecaloid vomiting, bloody stools, consumption coagulopathy manifested by gastrointestinal hemorrhages, ecchymoses, petechiae, and skin necrosis. The radiographic picture was of intestinal obstruction, one loop being particularly affected in some patients where it showed loss of contours, edema, and localized pneumatosis. Fourteen were treated by intestinal resection, 16 by medical measures without operation or with added decompressive ileostomy. There were seven survivors in the former 14, and no survivors in the 16 in whom resection was not done.