Enterolith Ileus in a Patient with Myotonic Dystrophy

Abstract

A 54-year-old female outpatient with myotonic dystrophy (MD) had received conservative treatment for ileus for three months: however, she alternately showed amelioration and deterioration. During laparotomy, an intestinal stone about the size of a hen's egg was found in the small intestine, causing enterolith ileus. The stone was extirpated by enterotomy and the postoperative course was good. MD is a systemic disease which causes myopathy of skeletal muscles, motor dysfunction of visceral smooth muscles and various symptoms in systemic organs and tissues. It has been pointed out that the formation of intestinal stones is caused by mechanical factors, such as stagnation of intestinal contents due to a diverticulum, blind pouch, stenosis, etc., as well as chemical factors. In the present case, motor dysfucntion of the smooth muscles of the small intestine due to MD was considered to have caused stagnation of the intestinal contents, which led to the formation of the intrestinal stone. Thus, we report here a case of surgically treated enterolith ileus that accompnied MD.