Trends in childhood intussusception in a Nigerian tertiary hospital.

Background: Early presentation, high rate of successful non-operative treatment, low morbidity and mortality in childhood intussusception is common in High and Upper Middle-Income Countries but not in many Lower middle- and Low-income countries.

Aim: To assess the trends in the profile, treatment modalities and outcomes of intussusception in our hospital.

Materials and methods: Retrospective study over a 12-year period divided into two 6-year periods. Data entry/analysis was done using SPSS and various indices were compared between these two periods. Two-tailed t-test for two independent means was used to compare means while two-tailed Fisher exact tests were used to compare categorical variables. Results were presented as tables, means, ranges, percentages and a p-value less than 0.05 was deemed statistically significant.

Results: There was a significant increase in the proportion of successful non-operative treatment (18.6% vs 34%, p=0.03), reduction in the incidence of operative manual reduction (27.1% vs 12.8%; p=0.026), reduction in operative treatment (78.5% vs 63.9%, p=0.034), increased utilization of pre-intervention ultrasound (75% vs96.7%, p<0.0001) and reduction in hospital stay duration (10.47 ±7.95days vs 7.24±4.86 days; p=0.004).

Conclusions: Contribution of successful non-operative treatment to the overall treatment of intussusception significantly increased while that of operative manual reduction significantly reduced and bowel resection showed no change. Preoperative utilization of ultrasonography significantly increased while mean duration of admission reduced significantly, but late presentation, morbidity and mortality rates had no significant changes.