Failure to improve outcome in acute mesenteric ischaemia: seven-year review

Abstract

Objective: To determine whether the prognosis of acute mesenteric ischaemia has changed over the past seven years.

Design: Retrospective study.

Setting: Teaching hospital, Scotland.

Subjects: 57 patients who presented to this hospital between January 1987 and December 1993 with acute mesenteric ischaemia.

Main outcome measures: Morbidity, mortality and prognostic features.

Results: 46 of the 57 patients died. Only 18(32%) patients were accurately diagnosed before operation or death. Clinical presentation, white cell count, and serum amylase activity were not helpful in the diagnosis. Only 3 patients had mesenteric angiography, and none were given lytic agents or vasodilators.

Conclusion: Mortality from acute mesenteric ischaemia has not changed during the past two decades and in the absence of an accurate diagnostic test is unlikely to do so.