POSTOPERATIVE PSEUDOMEMBRANOUS ENTEROCOLITIS: SUCCESSFUL TREATMENT WITH CORTICOTROPIN (ACTH)

Perhaps no other postoperative complication presents so serious and baffling a problem as pseudomembranous enterocolitis. The lack of experience with this infrequent disease makes diagnosis difficult, and the heretofore absence of known treatment makes death certain in a large number of cases. These provocative factors and our observation that the lives of these patients may be saved by brief administration of corticotropin (ACTH) testify to the importance and urgency of this problem. Pseudomembranous enterocolitis is a clinical entity that has been observed after major surgical operations. In our series of seven cases, it occurred four times after resection of the sigmoid or sigmoid and rectum, once after vagotomy and gastrojejunostomy, once after simple cholecystectomy, and once after right hemicolectomy and resection of the terminal ileum. Even though it occurs more frequently after intestinal surgery, it has been observed after operations on the brain, breast, uterus, gallbladder, and stomach. 1 Penner