An Adult Case of Congenital Duodenal Diaphragm

Tooru Yusa, Yuuji Funayama, Ryuuji Nakamura, Kazunori Takeda, Masao Kobari, Seiki Matsuno

The First Department of Surgery, Tohoku University School of Medicine

Duodenal diaphragm is a rare congenital disease and it is usually diagnosed in infancy. We report here an adult case of this disease. The patient was a 24-year-old woman. She had a history of frequent vomiting from infancy, but had not received any special treatment. When she visited a hospital complaining of abdominal pain in July 1989, a diagnosis of duodenal diaphragm was made from an upper gastrointestinal barium series and endoscopy. The diaphragm was safely excised, and the postoperative course was uneventful. The orifice of the accessory pancreatic duct was found on the oral surface of the diaphragm, and the papilla of Vater was located near the anal portion of the diaphragm. It is important to confirm the opening of the bile duct and pancreatic duct by secretin injection or a gallbladder compression test, to prevent injury to the opening when excising the duodenal diaphragm.

Key words
duodenal web, duodenal diaphragm, duodenal stenosis in the adult

Reprint requests
Tooru Yusa The First Department of Surgery, Tohoku University School of Medicine
1-1 Seiryocho, Aobaku, Sendai, 980 JAPAN

Accepted
May 13, 1992

To read the PDF file you will need Abobe Reader installed on your computer.