Volvulus of the colon, which was formerly termed intestinal strangulation, was first described by Rokitansky in 1837.16 Early diagnosis and prompt treatment of this relatively rare form of intestinal obstruction not only give a sense of achievement to the surgeon but are life-saving to the patient. It is not the purpose of this report to review the literature on volvulus of the cecum and right colon, as this has been done adequately by previous authors,3,7,10,15,17,18 nor is it intended to merely add cases of this disease to the literature. It is my objective to focus further attention to this problem in order to promote increased awareness of a disease which has a mortality of 30% to 60% in the reported series of cases.7,10,14,15,19
This report includes six patients with acute volvulus of the cecum and/or right colon and 13 with intermittent or recurrent volvulus treated by the