Mesenteric Arterial Insufficiency and Abdominal Angina

Spectacular achievements have been attained in the angiographic diagnosis and surgical treatment of vascular disease in recent years. The benefits have extended to sundry vascular territories including the mesenteric circulation.^1-3 Additional information appears desirable especially with respect to borderline degrees of circulatory embarrassment such as are associated with intestinal disorders other than infarction. The most dramatic but by no means the only manifestation of borderline mesenteric arterial insufficiency is abdominal angina, a syndrome for which many synonyms are found in the literature: visceral angina,⁴ intestinal angina,⁵ intermittent anemic dysperistalsis,⁶ abdominal intermittent claudication,⁷ abdominal pain of vascular origin,⁸ chronic midgut ischemia,⁹ intermittent ischemia of mesenteric arteries,¹⁰ and others.

Materials and Methods  The observations here to be reported are based on an angiographic study of the mesenteric arterial circulation carried out post mortem on a population with an average age of about 60 years. This study reported on in a.