Postoperative and Artificially Induced Pneumoperitoneum: Persistence in Children

Introduction  It is well known that, in adults, postoperative pneumoperitoneum may persist for 1 to 3 weeks.^1-3 Hope and Cramer ⁴ have shown that postoperative pneumoperitoneum disappears much more rapidly in children than in adults. We noticed, however, that in some children postoperative pneumoperitoneum persisted for a longer period than had been found by these authors. In order to determine the frequency with which this occurs we have studied the persistence of free air in the peritoneal cavity in a series of 75 infants and children.

Material and Methods  Our material comprised 75 infants and children under the age of 10 years.In 33 cases, 50-80 cc. of air was injected into the peritoneal cavity during herniotomy. The patients in the remaining 42 cases had been subjected to laparotomy for various diseases.The first roentgenogram of the abdomen was obtained from 2 to 24 hours after the completion of