Syndrome of Intestinal Arterial Insufficiency ("Abdominal Angina")

CIRCULATORY disturbances of the bowel have long been recognized, but in the absence of the stimulus of adequate therapy little has been done to understand their pathogenesis completely. One significant clinical entity occurs in which the compromised blood flow to the bowel is adequate when the bowel is at rest but not adequate when it is normally challenged to carry out its physiologic function. Clinically this is characterized by a syndrome having the outstanding features of postprandial abdominal pain, anorexia, weight loss, and eventually infarction of the bowel. With the advent of successful surgical techniques the clinical diagnosis of chronic ischemia of the bowel has become important. In order to improve our understanding of this syndrome of intermittent arterial insufficiency of the bowel and with the idea that this condition could be diagnosed in its early, more subtle form, the study reported herein was undertaken. Method The literature on intestinal