Acute Intestinal Invagination of the Child at the Teaching Hospital of Bouaké: Ultrasound Diagnosis and Clinical-Echo-Surgical Correlation

Background: Acute intestinal invagination or intussusception is the most common abdominal surgical emergency in infants, but it can occur at any age. Performing an ultrasound scan at the slightest clinical suspicion contributes to early diagnosis and therapeutic management. Objective: To show the relevance of ultrasound in the therapeutic management of the child’s intussusception through a correlation between the ultrasound diagnosis and the clinical and/or per operative diagnosis. Patients and Methods: It was a retrospective study of 24 cases from July 2017 to September 2020 (30 months) in the Medical Imaging and Paediatric Surgery departments of Teaching Hospital of Bouaké. We included only patients from 0 to 15 years old who had digestive symptoms, an abdominal ultrasound scan. These patients were eligible for surgery. Data analysis was performed with Epi info 7 software. Results: Median age was 17.2 months [02 - 120]. Male gender predominated (83.3%). Clinico-biological data were dominated by abdominal pain (79.2%), vomiting (75%) and rectorragies (33.3%), with Ombredanne’s triad in 33.3% and hyperleukocytosis (70.8%). Ultrasonography showed invaginated coves (95.8%) sitting in the right angl iliac fossa, peri-umbilical and right flank in 73.9%. Cockade image coupled with the sandwich image accounted for 95.6%. Superficial adenopathies (45.8%) and peri-lesional fluid effusion (20.8%) were associated with it. An occlusive syndrome complicating intussusception was observed in 41.67% associated with intra-peritoneal effusion of fluid (25%). There was a significant diagnostic agreement between the clinic, ultrasound and surgery according to the Fisher’s exact test (p = 0.002). That between ultrasound and surgery was calculated at 95.4%. Conclusion: This study allowed us to show a good clinical-echo-surgical concordance. Ultrasound is therefore an undeniable diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic tool in the exploration of intussusception, hence the interest of its prescription in the shortest possible time by the clinician.