ACUTE SEGMENTAL OBSTRUCTING ENTERITIS IN CHILDREN

We studied a group of 15 children with acute segmental enteritis assoc iated with intestinal obstruction. The disease is characterized by fev er, leukocytosis, copious bilious vomiting, and severe abdominal pain with signs of intestinal obstruction. Exploration revealed varying deg rees of segmental ischemic change in the small bowel, but surgery seem ed to be unnecessary in most cases. Antibiotics were effective in nono perative cases. The clinical illness lasted 10-14 days. The disease wa s self-limited, and no mortality was found in our series. To our knowl edge, this is the first report of this disease entity in Chinese child ren.