Reduction of intussusception using air or oxygen has wide acceptance as an alternative to conventional hydrostatic reduction. This study was undertaken to evaluate the results and complications of air pressure enema in 948 pediatric inc tussusception. One hundred and twenty nine cases were operated on at the Department of Surgery, Masan Samsung Hospital from 1985 to 1996 because of air reduction failure. The success rate was 86.4 %. Twenty-one patients(2.2 %) showed perforation during air reduction. Risk prone factors of perforation were; age less than 3 months(42.9 % vs 11.1 %), duration of symptoms greater than 48 hours(66.7 % vs 33.3 %), and presence of pathologic leading point(28.6 % vs 3.7 %). Vomitting and spontaneous rectal bleeding revealed higher prediction to the complication. In ninteen cases, bowel infarction, coagulated necrosis and hemorrhage suggested that the cause of perforation was due to the preexisting strangulation. In conclusion, when doing an air pressure enema reduction, care must be taken if the patient is of a young age or the symptoms are of long duration.
