The patient was an obese housewife aged 50 years. The day her pharynx ruptured, her lunch consisted of chips and gravy followed by a steamed fruit pudding which she had made herself. To use her own words, she 'swallowed a mouthful of pudding unexpectedly'. The pudding seemed to stick in her throat and she was immediately seized with intense pain on the left side of the neck. She was at once awa...

Delay in diagnosis and treatment can result in serious complications in the otherwise benign neonatal small left colon syndrome. This condition was first distinguished from other forms of microcolon by Davis et al. (1974), and subsequently reports have suggested a surgical orientation. The condition presents as a low obstruction of the large bowel, similar to Hirschsprung's disease in the newbo...

1. Early identification of strangulated bowel allows for faster treatment and improved outcomes. 2. Accurate diagnosis of strangulation cannot be made using physical exam or laboratory studies. 3. Most sensitive and specific modality for diagnosing strangulation is a non-contrast CT scan followed by an arterial and venous phase looking for enhancement of bowel wall. 4. Oral Gastrografin has bee...

for it was largely intra-thoracic and yet the tear was limited to the oesophago-gastric junction. It is suggested here that there is occasionally a failure of relaxation of the lower oesophagus which raises the pressure gradient to a sufficient degree to cause a tear, for the lower oesophagus normally relaxes during vomiting and in this patient the gastrografin swallow showed evidence of abnorm...