Pain Clinic, vol.16, no.3, pp.329-334, 2004 (Scopus)
Early surgical intervention in small intestine obstructions is very important in preventing mortality and morbidity. In this study, attempts were made to determine whether it is possible to predict timing and necessity for surgical intervention in intestinal obstructions using radiopaque capsules. Need for surgical intervention was evaluated depending on the location of the capsule as observed in the plain abdominal radiograph at the 2nd, 5th and 8th hours of the study. If the capsule was fixed in the epigastric region (Group 1) all such patients required surgical intervention; if it was located in the small intestine (Group II), 84.6% of the patients, and if it moved along the small intestine (Group III), 2.1% needed surgical intervention. If the capsule had passed into the colon (Group IV), no operation was needed.