Evaluation of Small Bowel Obstruction Using Multidetector Computed Tomography (MDCT)

Small bowel obstruction is a relatively common clinical condition and its diagnosis is based on the clinical signs, the patient’s history and the radiologic findings. For a patient with suspected small bowel obstruction, it is essential to determine the site, location and cause of obstruction for the appropriate management. Because of the poor accuracy of plain radiography, computed tomography (CT) now has an essential role to diagnose bowel obstruction. With the recent evolution of conventional CT into multidetector computed tomography (MDCT), it is possible to obtain cross sectional images with high spatial resolution and different post-processes can be done, such as obtaining the volume rendering (VR), maximum intensity projection (MIP), or multiplanar reformatted (MPR) images from the volume data. In this article, we illustrate and discuss the utility of the multiplanar images of MDCT for diagnosing the sites, causes and complications of small bowel obstruction.