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Virus Infections Simulating Acute Surgical Abdominal Emergencies in Pregnancy
Author(s) -
Lee Alan D.,
Allan Beverley C.
Publication year - 1974
Publication title -
australian and new zealand journal of obstetrics and gynaecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.734
H-Index - 65
eISSN - 1479-828X
pISSN - 0004-8666
DOI - 10.1111/j.1479-828x.1974.tb00830.x
Subject(s) - medicine , abdominal pain , laparotomy , pregnancy , echovirus , acute abdominal pain , incidence (geometry) , peritonitis , obstetrics , virus , peritoneal fluid , surgery , virology , enterovirus , genetics , physics , optics , biology
Summary: Case histories are presented of 13 women admitted to hospital with acute abdominal pain occurring between the twelfth and thirty‐eighth weeks of pregnancy. In the 8 patients in whom laparotomy was performed a mild peritonitis, without obvious cause, was found; virus was cultured from each of these patients — from peritoneal fluid in 3 and from the faeces in 10. The antigenically related echoviruses types 1 and 8 were prominent amongst the strains isolated. Controls, pregnant women without acute abdominal pain, though not well matched in time, showed a very much lower incidence of viral infection. it is suggested that these 13 cases are examples of mild peritonitis in pregnancy caused by viral infection.