2016 Volume 36 Issue 4 Pages 739-744
A 92-year-old woman was admitted to our hospital with a diagnosis of intestinal obstruction. Abdominal CT showed a small-bowel loop incarcerated between the left pectineus muscle and left external obturator muscle. Under the diagnosis of intestinal obstruction due to incarceration of a left obturator hernia, surgery was performed using the laparoscopic approach. Intra operative observation showed a small bowel loop incarcerated in the left obturator foramen. The incarcerated small bowel segment was pushed out by the water pressure method, consisting of injection of normal saline through a Foley catheter®. Since no irreversible changes were observed in the incarcerated small bowel loop, the hernial orifice was closed with a mesh sheet. The postoperative course was uneventful, and the patient was discharged on the 12th postoperative day. With the advances in the techniques of laparoscopic surgery, the laparoscopic approach has been increasingly adopted for the treatment of obturator hernia. We report a case of successful reduction of the strangulated intestinal segment using the water pressure method.
