The treatment of intestinal obstruction includes non-surgical and surgical treatment.
Surgical treatment is divided into: release of adhesions, removal of impaction, excision of necrotic or tumor-bearing intestinal segments, drainage of abscesses, intestinal fistula and decompression, etc. However, in the case of intestinal obstruction after repeated intestinal adhesion release, it is easy for the adhesions to recur and reappear after the adhesions are released; in the case of intestinal obstruction with recurrent abdominal cancer, extensive metastasis, abdominal dissemination or even ascites, surgeons are respectful of such patients, and the healing of the intestinal anastomosis cannot be guaranteed after the opening of such patients. If the anastomosis does not grow well, intestinal fistula occurs and leads to abdominal infection, the patient will be in danger. In addition, patients of advanced age, combined with serious heart, lung, liver and kidney diseases, can hardly withstand the blow of surgery, and these patients are called refractory intestinal obstruction. These patients with intestinal obstruction can only receive intravenous nutrition for a long time with a gastric tube in their nose and continuous outward suction.
In order to solve this surgical problem, Dr. Eigoro Yamauchi of Japan invented a strange and minimally invasive treatment method for intestinal obstruction using magnets. The procedure is as follows: the patient swallows the first magnet, which follows the peristalsis of the stomach and intestine to the small intestine and finally stays in front of the obstruction; the doctor uses a colonoscope to hold the second identical magnet and puts it into the large intestine through the patient’s anus, and the two magnets automatically attract each other and overlap completely when they are close together; the intestinal wall between the two magnets gradually necroses due to compression and ischemia, while the intestinal wall around the magnet gradually fuses together. After a week, the necrotic intestinal wall fell off to form a round hole, and the two magnets adsorbed together fell into the large intestine side of the hole, and then discharged from the anus; the appearance of this round hole enabled a new channel to be established between the intestines before and after the obstruction, and the food in the intestines chose this new channel to enter the large intestine directly, bypassing the original obstruction, and the intestinal obstruction was lifted. General Surgery I of the hospital was the first to carry out magnet compression anastomosis in China and was able to cure these patients with intractable intestinal obstruction with this new, breakthrough method of traditional concept.