Child health · UKMLA & AKT
Volvulus
A free high-yield preview for the UKMLA Applied Knowledge Test, covering how to recognise this condition. The full SA Note notes add investigations, management and complications, with practice questions on this topic.
Key high-yield points
- Volvulus - twisting of bowel around its mesenteric axis causing obstruction and ischaemia
- In children, most important form is midgut volvulus occurring in the context of intestinal malrotation (congenital failure of normal 270-degree counter-clockwise gut rotation)
- Malrotation: caecum sits in right upper quadrant, mesenteric root is narrow - midgut can twist freely around the SMA; Ladd's bands cross and compress the duodenum
- Malrotation occurs in ~1 in 500 live births; ~80% of symptomatic cases present in the first month of life
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