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Morbidity and mortality from acute intestinal obstruction have been decreasing over the past several decades. Nevertheless, the diagnosis can still be challenging, and the type of complications that patients suffer has not changed significantly. The extent of mechanical obstruction is typically described as partial, high-grade, or complete—generally correlating with the risk of complications and the urgency with which the underlying disease process must be addressed. Obstruction is also commonly described as being either “simple” or, alternatively, “strangulated” if vascular insufficiency and intestinal ischemia are evident.
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Acute intestinal obstruction occurs either mechanically from blockage or from intestinal dysmotility when there is no blockage. In the latter instance, the abnormality is described as being functional. Mechanical bowel obstruction may be caused by extrinsic processes, intrinsic abnormalities of the bowel wall, or intraluminal abnormalities (Table 323-1). Within each of these broad categories are many diseases that can impede intestinal propulsion. Intrinsic diseases that can cause intestinal obstruction are usually congenital, inflammatory, neoplastic, or traumatic in origin, although intussusception and radiation injury can also be etiologic.
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Acute intestinal obstruction accounts for ~1–3% of all hospitalizations and a quarter of all urgent or emergent general surgery admissions. Approximately 80% of cases involve the small bowel, and about one-third of these patients show evidence of significant ischemia. The mortality rate for patients with strangulation who are operated on within 24–30 h of the onset of symptoms is ~8% but triples shortly thereafter.
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Extrinsic diseases most commonly cause mechanical obstruction of the small intestine. In the United States and Europe, almost all cases are caused by postoperative adhesions, carcinomatosis, or herniation of the anterior abdominal wall. Carcinomatosis most often originates from the ovary, pancreas, stomach, or colon, although rarely, metastasis from distant organs like the breast and skin can occur. Adhesions are responsible for the majority of cases of early postoperative obstruction that require intervention. It ...