Obturator hernia: the usefulness of computed tomography in diagnosis.
BACKGROUND
Delay in diagnosis and treatment of the rare obturator hernia often leads to high resection and mortality rates. Reviews of the clinical courses and the reliability of computed tomography (CT) in early diagnosis are reported.


METHODS
Seventeen patients with obturator hernias were treated between April 1983 and December 1994. Except for one man, all were emaciated women who had undergone an average of 4.7 live deliveries. The mean age was 79.9 years.


RESULTS
All patients had small bowel obstruction symptoms. Howship-Romberg sign was present in 11 patients. Twelve cases were correctly diagnosed before operation. After the introduction of CT in the diagnosis of suspected hernia cases, preoperative diagnosis was made on 9 of the 10 patients (90%) and CT was performed on 8 patients with 100% accuracy.


CONCLUSIONS
Definite and early diagnosis is possible with the awareness of the clinical courses of this hernia and by performing CT on suspected cases.
Ijiri
R
R
Department of Surgery, Fujieda Shida General Hospital, Fujieda City, Japan.
Kanamaru
H
H
Yokoyama
H
H
Shirakawa
M
M
Hashimoto
H
H
Yoshino
G
G
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005260:Female; D006553:Hernia, Obturator / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000401:mortality / Q000601:surgery; D006801:Humans; D007415:Intestinal Obstruction / Q000209:etiology; D008297:Male; D010298:Parity; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed