Knotted Intestinal Decompression Tube

To the Editor:—  Intestinal intubation is frequently employed in the management of small-bowel obstruction, a procedure from which complications have not been reported.¹ We recently encountered an intubation complication in a patient who had had a gastroenterostomy. The diagnosis was made from plain abdominal x-ray films and confirmed at surgery. The purposes of this report are to describe the roentgenographic findings and to propose a method of avoiding the complication.

Report of a Case:—  A 25-year-old woman had had a gastrojejunostomy two years previously at another hospital for peptic ulcer. The patient was admitted to our hospital in December 1967 with a perforated gastric ulcer just distal to the gastrojejunostomy site. Surgical closure was performed without gastric resection, and the patient was soon discharged on a strict ulcer regimen.Three days later, she was readmitted with intractable periumbilical and epigastric pain. Definitive resectional surgery was planned after several days of