Conclusions
Perforation of the colon or rectum, with an attendant high mortality rate, is apt to occur during administration of barium enema in patients in whom the bowel has been weakened by disease or trauma. This accident is probably more common than reports in medical literature would indicate.
Five cases have been presented in which either intraperitoneal or extraperitoneal rupture of a previously defective bowel occurred during barium enema administration. Rupture was due to excessive distention of the wall of the bowel by inflation of a Bardex retention balloon in two patients. Pressure of an ordinary barium enema on a diseased and weakened colon wall was probably the reason for intraperitoneal perforation in two of the other cases. Added precautions and care by the clinician and the radiologist will aid in preventing this catastrophe in some cases where the bowel is susceptible because of disease or injury.
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Read at the meeting of the American Proctologic Society, Los Angeles, California, June 29 to July 3, 1958.
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Grodsky, L. Perforation of the colon and rectum during administration of barium enema. Dis Colon Rectum 2, 216–225 (1959). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02616721
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02616721