Clinical diagnosis imaging in intestinal obstruction

ABSTRACT

In these days of sophisticated technology; the diagnosis of intestinal obsruction (and pseudo-obstruction) still depends almost entirely on plain X-rays and barium studies. Although rigid routines (and old myths) interfere with the interpretation of plain X-ray; nevertheless; the first step in intestinal obstruction is a series of plain X-rays without contrast. An erect; lateral left decubitus (2) supine and chest X-ray (3); (4); should be obtained because of several reasons. One of these reasons is the fact that a chest X-ray is necessary in all plain X-ray series for obstruction; in order not to be trapped into a wrong diagnosis of mechanical small bowel obstruction in pneumonia (not even only those limited to the lower lobes) and this; especially in aging adults and young children