Small bowel obstruction

Small bowel obstruction. While it’s helpful to consider the small bowel to be central in the abdomen, and the colon peripheral, you should not rely 100% on this to distinguish the two. In this example, there is dilated small bowel (measuring 5 cm), with valvulae conniventes visible, in the right lateral aspect of the abdomen. The reason it is located here is that the patient had a previous right hemicolectomy – and the obstruction was due to adhesions.