ABSTRACT
MATERIAL AND METHODS: Between 2005 and 2009, 19 patients underwent surgery with an accidental finding of Meckel´s diverticulum (MD) at the Second Department of Surgery in Louis Pasteur University Hospital in Kosice. Twelve patients were primarily operated on for acute appendicitis, 3 of them for ileus, 3 patients underwent an elective operation for a gastrointestinal malignity, and in 1 case Meckels diverticulum was found during a complicated cholecystectomy. The average age of the patients was 40.4 years (7 women and 12 men). With regard to the accidental finding in the majority of the cases (18), we proceeded radically with diverticulum resection; in 1 case the diverticulum was left in place. CONCLUSIONS: Meckel´s diverticulum is among the most frequently occurring congenital anomalies of the gastrointestinal tract; in most cases it has an asymptomatic course and its finding is usually accidental during another operation in the abdominal cavity. In such a case it is up to each individual surgeon to consider all the possible risks and complications and decide on an adequate operating procedure according to the abovementioned criteria of authors defining the absolute indication or contraindication for a radical surgical intervention.
