Intussusception is an unfamiliar term for many parents. Intussusception is not uncommon, but the symptoms of intussusception are sometimes just violent crying, especially in infants who do not complain of abdominal pain, and are easily overlooked by parents. Early diagnosis of intussusception is crucial to the choice of treatment and the prognosis of the disease, which can be solved by timely diagnosis of enema, but if it is late, surgery is needed, and if the intestine is necrotic, the necrotic section of intestine needs to be removed.
Intussusception is one of the most common abdominal emergencies in pediatric patients and refers to the recessing of a segment of the intestine into its distal intestine. The human intestinal canal is coiled in the abdominal cavity, and the movement of the intestinal canal is similar to the movement of a worm. For some reason, the retrograde peristalsis of the intestine causes a part of the intestine to retrograde into the adjacent intestinal cavity, forming intussusception. When intussusception occurs, the recessed intestinal segment will cause pressure on the blood vessels of the intestinal wall, which will block the return flow of venous blood and lymphatic fluid of the intestinal wall, causing swelling of the intestinal wall and rupture of the intestinal mucosa, resulting in bleeding.
Intussusception is a unique disease in infancy and early childhood, commonly seen in infants under 2 years of age, with infants aged 4-10 months being the most common, the incidence decreasing with age, and extremely rare after 5 years of age. The incidence of the disease in boys is significantly higher, with boys being 2-3 times more common than girls. Most cases of intussusception do not have a clear cause. Diarrhea, constipation, respiratory infections, and the use of certain medications may all be triggering factors. Some scholars believe that this is the early stage of complementary feeding (5-9 months), when the infant’s gastrointestinal function is still incomplete and prone to gastrointestinal dysfunction caused by new food stimulation, which is also one of the triggers of intussusception. The incidence in older children is often closely associated with a number of primary diseases, such as Merkel’s diverticulum, intestinal polyps, and lymphoma.
Although intussusception is rare, its prognosis is closely related to the early and late detection, so when you find that your child is crying differently than usual, crying particularly severely, take your child to the hospital for consultation and treatment.