Waugh’s syndrome: report of two cases

Association of Waugh Syndrome with Intestinal Volvulus in an Infant

“…These four patients presented with abdominal distension, two of them with small bowel distension [6,7], one with gastric distension and a gasless intestine in the plain film of abdomen [8] and in a patient a plain abdominal radiograph was not done [9]. Inan et al suggested that the absence of abdominal distension and paucity of gas distally on plain films may be two possible indicators of Waugh's syndrome [10]. We suggest that intestinal gas poverty in the presence of abdominal distension in an infant with ultrasonography finding of intestinal invagination, as was noticed in this case, may be considered an indicator of Waugh's syndrome with intestinal volvulus.…”

Familial intussusception

“…The etiology of intussusception in childhood is unclear [6,14,18,24,27]. Of these intussusception cases, 90% are idiopathic [4,6].…”

“…Secondly, one theory talks about a greater disproportion between the size of the ileum and the ileocolic valve in infants vs older children [1,14]. Thirdly, lack of normal rotation and fixation of the intestine is thought to be an important factor in the etiology of the idiopathic intussusception in childhood [3,27,29,34].…”

Intussusception: An anatomical perspective with review of the literature

“…In children, a mobile cecum and malrotation could allow for the ileum to pass into the cecum and then the cecum to pass into the colon (Tatekawa et al, 1998;Stringer and Babyn, 2000;Oshio et al, 2007). The pairing of malrotation and intussusception is called Waugh's syndrome (Brereton, 1986;Breckon and Hadley, 2000;Inan et al, 2004). This association was first described by Waugh in 1911 and the term Waugh's syndrome was coined by Brereton et al (1986).…”

“…In addition, three of these patients had the cecum placed in the middle of the abdomen. Inan et al (2004) reported two cases of Waugh's syndrome, both associated with an unfixed cecum and mobile colon. Fixation explains why the duodenum is rarely involved in an intussusception (Fitzwilliams, 1908a,b).…”