Colonic Diverticulitis : Clinical and Statistical Consideration from Japanese References

During the past two years, we encountered 4 cases of colonic diverticulitis, who had been treated surgically. Kodeki and chiyama reviewed all cases of this disease reported in Japan until November, 1968. In addition, 534 cases of colonic diverticular disease were reported to us during the period from December, 1968 to 1973. Colonic diverticular is common in the age from 40 to 60 years old, and infrequent under 19 years old. Incidence of morbidity is higher in males than in femals, with a ratio of 2.4 to 1. The 4 cases in this report were all males. The lesions of this disease are mostly located in the right half of the colon in Japanese, whereas they are analysis of the 100 cases collected in the literatures, are abdominal pain as seen in our cases, regardless of region of the involvement. However, intestinal bleeding occurs more frequently in the left colon than in the right colon. It is very difficult to differentiate this disease from acute appendicitis because of the similarity of symptom. The treatment of this disease was also discussed.