About spastic gastrointestinal block

High gastrointestinal obstruction that occurs after operations on the stomach does not always find an explanation in the phenomena of a vicious circle, depending on mechanical obstacles, or in the phenomena of paralytic obstruction due to peritonitis around the anastomosis. In 1921, Blond, and after him Reischauer, on the basis of the development of a large operative ulcerative material of the Küttner clinic, proposed to distinguish all cases of high obstruction after gastroenterostomy, where there are no visible mechanical or paralytic reasons for it, into the concept of a spastic gastrointestinal block, considering that the operating room trauma entails a strong increase in the tone of the muscles of the stomach and intestines. Spastic gastrointestinal block can occur either shortly after surgery (acute cases), or some time after it (subacute and chronic cases). According to Gertel, with this complication, there is a retrograde passage of intestinal contents into the stomach.