Intraoperative enteroscopy--indications and limitations.

Over the past 9 years we were called upon to operate on 47 patients because of bleeding lesions of the small intestine. The procedure of intraoperative endoscopy was selected for 17 of these patients. One or more of the following indications for intraoperative endoscopy pertained: to detect otherwise occult lesions (nine patients), to define the location of multiple small lesions (six patients), to confirm bleeding from known lesions (two patients), to exclude the presence of lesions suspected of bleeding (two patients), and to aid in determining the length of required resection (two patients). Fourteen of these 17 patients survived the immediate post-operative period, and in a median follow-up of 37 months bleeding has not recurred. No complication of intraoperative enteroscopy was encountered in this series.