Blunt trauma to the upper abdomen may cause bleeding into the wall of the proximal small intestine resulting in occlusion of the bowel lumen by an expanding hematoma. This unusual mechanism of high intestinal obstruction is more common in children than in adults. The diagnosis of traumatic intestinal hematoma should be strongly suspected when a child presents with evidence of high small intestinal obstruction and a history of recent trauma to the abdomen.
Because of the rarity of the condition and the infrequency with which the proper diagnosis is made preoperatively, we feel that presentation of a case we recently diagnosed correctly and managed successfully, together with a discussion of the significant features of this disease derived from our own experience and from the literature, would be useful to those who may encounter this problem.
McLaughlin12 has generally been recognized as the first to describe a case of intestinal