Assessment and diagnosis of acute bowel ischemia with multidetector computed tomography (MDCT)

Background: Acute bowel ischemia (ABI) is a life-threatening condition which most often affects elderly patients. It requires an intensive treatment and quick diagnosis. Unfortunately, ABI is manifested not only by specific but also by various nonspecific clinical or laboratory findings. The radiological symptoms of the bowel ischemia are also differentiated and often nonspecific while the specific findings are rather uncommon. That is why the knowledge of the bowel ischemia pathogenesis and possible CT findings is so important for the correct diagnosis. Material/Methods: In our paper, we present the radiological findings of the acute bowel ischemia based on the analysis of the patients' examinations. The purpose of our study is to assess the MDCT in patients with acute bowel ischemia. The material of this study consists of four computer tomography examinations - three of those are angio-CT, and one abdominal-CT - in patients with acute abdomen symptoms. Results/Conclusions: The result revealed the mesenteric thrombosis in two cases, and mesenteric artery stenosis in one case. In one case, the thrombus was present in the abdominal aorta. In conclusion, we claim that the MDCT should be the modality of choice for the diagnosis of the acute bowel ischemia