2017 Volume 37 Issue 1 Pages 035-037
A-68-year-old man was transported to our hospital by ambulance with a history of acute abdominal pain and vomiting. Abdominal CT revealed small intestinal obstruction and high-density materials on the oral side of the obstruction. Furthermore, the patient gave a history of eating 4 rice cakes the previous day. We made the diagnosis of small intestinal obstruction caused by the rice cakes, and the patient was observed under fasting and intravenous fluid administration. His symptoms improved within a few hours and he was discharged from the hospital on the third day after admission. While intestinal obstruction caused by specific foods is rare, rice cake ingestion is a well-known cause. Rice cakes consist of starch without amylose and do easily disintegrate；furthermore, swelling and bonding occur readily. Therefore, it is thought that ileus can easily occur with insufficient chewing. Detection of high-density materials on CT is a characteristic finding of rice cake ileus. Thus, a careful meal history and CT are useful for making the diagnosis.
