Background: There are no clinical or laboratory markers that can diagnose acute mesenteric ischemia (AMI) accurately. This study aimed to find differences in clinical and laboratory markers between arterial occlusive AMI and other acute abdominal diseases where AMI was initially suspected.
Methods: This was a post hoc study of an international prospective multicenter study where data on patients with suspected AMI were collected. Independent factors associated with arterial occlusive AMI were evaluated in a multivariable logistic regression analysis.
Results: The number of patients with arterial occlusive AMI was 231, consisting of thrombotic (n = 104), embolic (n = 61), and indeterminate (n = 66) occlusions. The non-AMI group included 287 patients, of whom 128 had strangulated bowel obstruction. Current smoking (odds ratio [OR] 2.56, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.31-5.03), hypertension (OR 2.08, 95% CI 1.09-3.97), bowel emptying (OR 3.25, 95% CI 1.59-6.63), and leukocytosis (OR 1.54, 95% CI 1.14-2.08) at admission were independently associated with arterial occlusive AMI compared to the non-AMI group.
Conclusions: This study found clinical and laboratory data to be associated with arterial occlusive AMI in patients with suspicion of AMI, which can possibly be of value in screening for arterial occlusive AMI at the emergency department. Further studies are needed to find more accurate diagnostic markers.
Keywords: acute mesenteric ischemia; acute superior mesenteric artery; arterial occlusive AMI; clinical diagnosis; laboratory markers.