Introduction
Among patients admitted to a pediatric hospital with intussusception all degrees of severity of this disease are seen, from children with unexplained abdominal pain of short duration, to moribund infants who die before effective therapy can be instituted. Current reports have assessed the effectiveness of barium enema reduction in intussusception.5,15,21,24,30 Other recent articles attest to the fact that intestinal resection may be performed in cases of irreducible or infarcted intussusception with a steadily decreasing mortality.2,3,17,23 These two subjects seem pertinent to cases falling at the two extremes in the spectrum of disease severity; i.e., hydrostatic pressure reduction is applicable in the early, uncomplicated cases of intussusception, while resection becomes necessary in neglected or unusually malignant ones. The present study attempts to relate these currently prominent aspects of this disease to the general clinical problem of intussusception as seen in a pediatric center.A summary of the experience