Gastric volvulus in children

PubMed, the Internet portal of biomedical and life sciences literature, indexed an interesting article, entitled “Gastric volvulus in children” (Acta Paediatr Taiwan. 2006 Jan-Feb;47(1):18-24). Authors are Chang SW, Lee HC, Yeung CY, et al., from the Division of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition, Department of Pediatrics, Mackay Memorial Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan. Gastric volvulus (GV) is a rare disease in children that may not be recognized early in its course. The authors retrospectively analyzed 15 patients under 18 years of age who presented to their medical center with GV between January 1995 and June 2005. Patients with complete volvulus and acute obstruction requiring immediate intervention were defined as acute GV. Chronic GV was diagnosed in the presence of partial volvulus with chronic, nonspecific symptoms and signs. Organoaxial GV was the most common type (9/15), and there was a high incidence (6/15) of associated anomalies that predisposed to the condition. None of the patients had Borchardt’s triad (acute localized epigastric distension, unproductive retching, and the inability to pass a nasogastric tube) which is described in adults with acute GV. To access the full abstract of the article, click here.