[Dunbar's syndrome: clinical reality or physiopathologic hypothesis?].

The authors report the cases of two patients presenting a symptomatic intestinal angina caused by median arcuate ligament compression. Arteriography demonstrates severe coeliac artery stenosis in both of them and a retrograde filling of the coeliac axis from the superior mesenteric artery branch collateral vessels. The patients became asymptomatic after surgical release of the celiac trunk by section of the median arcuate ligament of the diaphragm. At 2 and 3 years follow-up, both patients report no further abdominal pain. Dunbar's syndrome is still a questionable subject; how can be a narrowing or an occlusion of the celiac artery semeiotically and clinically important? Some have proposed an ischemic base to explain the abdominal pain: the compression of the celiac trunk could be responsible of a celiac steal which results in shunting of blood from the superior mesenteric artery to the celiac distribution through the collateral system. There are very strong proofs that partial or even complete obstruction of the celiac artery should not lead to visceral ischemia such as: the rich collateral anastomosis of the celiac axis, the surgical ligation of the celiac axis performed without untoward consequences, the finding of asymptomatic celiac stenosis in the 49% of an arteriographic study, impossibility to formulate a consistent and rational for the surgical results. Shearing this view, few authors would prove that a stenotic type of the celiac artery is only a normal anatomic variant, refuting the existence of this syndrome.