Milan Vyskočil, Andrea Hvizdáková, Zuzana Pekarovičová, Ľudovít Lukáč
Mesenteric ischemia (MI) is a circulation-insufficiency caused by reduction in blood supply to the mesenteric region occurring either suddenly or chronically. This reduction may be secondary to lack of arterial blood flow (arterial embolus and thrombus) or venous stasis (mesenteric venous thrombus), impending the normal haemodynamics - occlusive MI. The other main form is nonocclusive MI with passable mesenteric arteries which originates in microvascular vasoconstriction. Intestinal ischemia has been classified into three major categories: acute mesenteric ischemia, chronic mesenteric ischemia and colonic ischemia. Acute MI is an abdominal emergency with low incidence (1 % of patients hospitalized for acute abdomen), but its early diagnosis, despite of growing interest paid to MI, is still difficult and it is associated with an extremely high mortality rate (60-90 %).