The acute abdomen in spinal cord injury patients.

After return of the reflex arc below the level of anaesthesia, the spinal cord injury (SCI) patient will manifest an intra-abdominal emergency by the clinical signs of dysreflexia depending upon the level and completeness of the cord lesion. Thirty-six SCI patients are presented to correlate the autonomic response to visceral disease with the level of their cord lesion demonstrating that early recognition and diagnosis is possible in these patients.