Clinical profile and histopathological correlation of non-traumatic small bowel perforations

Abstract

Non-traumatic perforation of small intestine is a common cause of peritonitis in developing countries requiring early surgical intervention. Various etiological factors have been proposed as the cause of small bowel perforation. It is difficult to diagnose cause of non-traumatic perforation of small bowel pre- operatively, so histopathology is a very important diagnostic tool. In this study consisting 40 patients, non-traumatic perforations were more common in males (72.5%) than females (27.5%) with maximum number of non-traumatic perforations (42.5%) occurring in the age group of 21-40 years and the minimum number (12.5%) occurring in the age group of ≤ 20years and >60 years, each. The most common etiology was nonspecific ileitis followed by tuberculosis, neoplasms and then, enteric fever.