A Case of Idiopathic Enteric Intussusception in an Oldest-old Individual

Abstract

A 97-year-old woman who had medical histories of multiple cerebral infarctions and Alzheimer's dementia and had been bedridden presented with a loss of appetite and abdominal distention. She could ingest orally in some way. Computed tomography revealed the presence of the target sign in the small intestine and intussusception of the oral intestinal tract into the anal intestinal tract, which led to the diagnosis of small enteric intussusception. As she was an oldest-old individual, conservative therapy was initiated, but this was unsuccessful. Accordingly, an emergency surgery was performed. Operative findings included that an ileum about 40 cm from the ileocecal valve had telescoped. We diagnosed her with enteric intussusception that was difficult to reduce manually due to necrosis of the ileum. We partially resected the small intestine involved in the intussusception. No tumor was detected in the resected specimen. After the operation, she required intensive care until the second postoperative day because of acute circulatory failure, and tube feeding was also initiated on the fourth postoperative day due to dysphagia. She was discharged 23 days after the surgery. The pathological diagnosis was idiopathic enteric intussusception. We report a rare case of idiopathic enteric intussusception in an oldest-old individual.