Pneumatosis intestinalis: a new concept.

Our interest in the subject of pneumatosis intestinalis and, in particular , its etiology, was stimulated by the occurrence of 3 cases in our hospital within one month. The common feature in these cases was severe pulmonary disease in exacerbation and lack of gastrointestinal complaints or demonstrable gastrointestinal involvement prior to the onset of th e pneumatosis. This suggested that pneumatosis intestinalis in a significant number of cases might occur as a result of air in the lung becoming interstitial from alveolar rupture, subsequently passing to the mediastinum and thence to the retroperitoneal area, and then dissecting along the vascular supply of the viscera. This seemed the more probable in that the distribution of the pneumatosis in our cases seemed to follow the pattern of vascular supply. Our experimental work has been directed toward proving or disproving this concept. Very soon after we started laboratory investigation, impetus to our study was given by a report by Doub and Shea (1) of ...