BACKGROUND: The authors present the physiological and clinical aspects,as well as the treatment of the digestive tract duplications. They analyse six patients operated on by the surgical staff of Pediatric Surgery at Hospital da Lagoa. METHODS: Authors analysed clinical outcome, diagnostic methods and treatment of six children with digestive tract duplications. All cases differed from each other. There were one duodenal, four jejunoileal and one patient whose duplication was connected only to the pancreas. RESULTS: Every patient was operated on. The duodenal duplication was connected to duodenum by one window. The four jejunoileal duplications were treated by resection of the segment of bowel connected to it. Finally, the cyst that seemingly originated from the pancreas was resected. There were two post operative complications, but there was no death in the series. CONCLUSION: Duplications of digestive tract need to be kept in mind for the differential diagnosis of thoracic and abdominal tumours, as well as intestinal obstruction and enterorrhagy. Knowledge of the existency and characteristics of these malformations will become possible the better conduct when they appear unexpectedly during surgery. It is important to search for associated anomalies or multiple duplications. If the diagnosis is suspected before surgery, the appropriate diagnosis recours will be employed in order to obtain better results.
Digestive system abnormalities; Intestinal obstruction; Gastrointestinal hemorrhage; Treatment
