Intussusception in infancy and childhood

Intussusception is the commonest cause of acute intestinal obstruction in infancy and childhood. Sixty-one cases of intussusception were analysed. The clinical presentation of our patients is somewhat different when compared to the experience of other workers. There is a 9-fold male predominance. Passage of blood in the stools was the commonest presentation. In 46% of the cases there was a history of preceeding diarrhoea. Only in 43% of the cases an abdominal mass could be felt. 62% of the children needed resection of the gut because of either irreducibility or gangrene of the bowel. We had an overal mortality of 26%. The morbidity and mortality was very high in patients who had resection as compared to the patients who had reduction only.