Intestinal duplication in children

Intestinal dulplication is a rare entity of congenital disease and occurs at any region of the gastrointestinal tract. A variety of clinical signs and symptoms in some cases of this disease often make it difficult for us to make correct diagnosis and treatment. In this paper, 6 cases (5 male infants and 1 female infant) who have been operated on for this disease in our department are reported. These 6 cases were 2 months old to 2 years old, 5 of them being under 1 year. Symptoms were intestinal obstruction in 4 cases and melena and perineal mass in one case each. These duplications occurred at the jejunal, ileal, terminoileal and rectal regions in 1, 1, 3 and 1 cases, respectively. One case had both tubullar and spherical dulplications and others had single spherical duplication each. Histologically, these duplications had both mucosal with cubic epithelium and muscular layer with smooth muscle. In 4 cases, diagnosis was made during emergency operation. Prognosis was good in all cases. In almost all cases, before a veriety of clinical findings, emergency operation was inevitably carried out without preoperative diagnosis. Accurate diagnosis based upon appropriate judgement is required preoperatively.