title: Acute abdominal pain and urgency to defecate in the young and the old: a useful symptom-complex?
abstract: In the belief that "pattern recognition" is an important first step of the diagnostic process, we report our observation of an uncommon and heretofore poorly documented symptom-complex in 10 patients, and suggest that the constellation of abdominal pain and urgency to defecate in the acutely ill surgical patient should raise the diagnostic possibility of intra-abdominal bleeding. In our experience, this is statistically likely to be associated with a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm in the old and a ruptured ectopic pregnancy in the young.
authors: Department of Surgery, College of Medicine, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada.
authors: N S
authors: NS
authors: Hadjis
authors: G J
authors: GJ
authors: McAuley
authors: L
authors: L
authors: Ruo
authors: S
authors: S
authors: Kwauk
authors: F
authors: F
authors: Olatunbosun
mesh_terms: D000006:Abdomen, Acute / Q000209:etiology*; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D017542:Aneurysm, Ruptured / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000601:surgery; D017544:Aortic Aneurysm, Abdominal / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000601:surgery; D003672:Defecation; D004630:Emergencies; D017809:Fatal Outcome; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011247:Pregnancy; D011271:Pregnancy, Ectopic / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000601:surgery