Background: Incidence of early recurrent intussusception (ERI) was previously reported at 10%. Today’s common practice is to admit the patient for 24 hours after the reduction for follow-up due to high probability of an early recurrence.
Purpose: To evaluate an incidence of early recurrent intussusception and its possible predictive factors.
Patients and methods: Hospital registry was searched for all the cases of ileo-colic intussusception for the last 10 years. Clinical records, laboratory results and imaging findings of each patient were evaluated. Statistical analysis was performed between the groups of children with and without ERI for such parameters as age, gender, clinical signs, laboratory data and sonographic characteristics of the lesion, as well as comparison between the groups for the seasonal distribution.
Results: Total 245 cases of intussusception in 208 children, 89 girls and 156 boys were included, ages 2 to 77 months, mean age 12.7 months, median 9.75 months, all underwent successful air enema reduction. Only 6 cases (2.9%) of ERI were observed, in an interval of 7 to 26 hours, mean 17.6 hours. Statistically significant difference of age was observed between the groups of children with and without ERI. Children in the group with recurrence were older (mean age 23 months, median 21 months) than in the group without (mean age 12.4 months, median 9 months), p=0.016. 83% of the cases of early recurrence happened in the in January to March period (p=0.001). No statistically significant difference was noted for other parameters.
Conclusion: In our series an incidence of an ERI was significantly lower compared to previous reports, and probably does not justify routine admission of all the children after intussusception reduction for 24 hours. Admission should be reserved for older children, in winter months, or according to clinical indications.
