A NEW APPROACH FOR ACUTE EMBOLUS OCCLUSION OF THE SUPERIOR MESENTERIC-ARTERY

Acute embolus occlusion of the superior mesenteric artery (SMA) either demonstrates a poor prognosis, or forces the patients to endure miser able postoperative dietary lives. Recently, we developed a new success ful technique which reduced the length of the intestinal segment that had to be removed. The technique was as follows: (1) the distal end of the SMA was ligated to avoid perfusion of the necrotic segment, and ( 3) a Fogarty balloon catheter was inserted from the distal end of the SMA and then passed proximally to remove any remaining clots. Using th e above-described technique on 3 cases from 1992 to 1994, we were thus able to shorten the length of the intestine that had to be removed an d thereby greatly improve the patients' postoperative dietary lives.