Gastrografin (GG) therapy is effective to treat adhesive small-bowel obstruction (ASBO)

Abstract

An 84-year-old man was admitted to our hospital with vomiting. Computed tomography revealed an ASBO. Nasogastric tube (NGT) deployment for two days was ineffective ; hence, we switched to TIT. Two days after the TIT conservative treatment, the patient did not show clinical improvement. Therefore, we administered 70 ml of GG into the small intestine through TIT. Three hours later, an abdominal X-ray showed that GG had reached the large bowel, and 24 h later, GG was completely washed out. This suggested that the obstruction had subsided. TIT significantly reduced the amount of output from the intestine. After the treatment with GG, the patient passed stool on day 5 and started ingesting food on day 7, without recurrence. GG therapy through TIT is an effective method to treat ASBO if there is no clinical improvement after conservative treatment.