Intestinal pneumatosis in adults: diagnostic and prognostic value

Abstract

Intestinal pneumatosis (IP) has been traditionally associated with intestinal infarction and poor outcome in adults; recent studies have questioned its clinical value. To assess its diagnostic and prognostic significance, we have retrospectively evaluated 102 patients correlating the CT finding of gastrointestinal parietal gas with clinical data and outcome. Fifty-three patients (52%) had surgical evidence of intestinal infarction. In the remaining patients, a variety of lesions were found including intestinal obstruction, cancer, volvulus, ulcer, hernia, trauma, Crohn's disease, diverticulitis, and iatrogenic causes. We observed the presence of portal vein gas (PVG) associated to IP in 25.5% of cases. In patients having both IP and PVG, intestinal infarction was observed in 69.2% of cases. In our series, overall mortality was 30.4% (31/102), and when PVG was present, it rose to 50% (13/26). In our study, IP has been observed in a broad range of lesions with very different prognosis, the most frequent of which was intestinal infarction. When associated to PVG, there was a much higher prevalence of intestinal infarct, and the prognosis was definitively worse.