Gastrointestinal Complications from Ingested Santol Seeds

Abstract

Gastrointestinal Complications from Ingested Santol Seeds

Anan                 Manomaipiboon               MD, MSc (Clinical epidemiology)

Boonchai          Ngamsirimas                    MD*

Suphakarn       echapongstorn                MD*

Busaba              Suppawattanabodee     BNS, MSc (Biostatistics)**

* Department of Surgery, BMA Medical College and Vajira Hospital

** Department of Nursing, BMA Medical College and Vajira Hospital

Objective: To survey the types and numbers of gastrointestinal complications from ingested Santol seeds and to study          knowledge and behavior of Santol consumption

Study design: Descriptive study

Subjects: All 1,601 qualified general surgeons of Thai Medical Council and a simple random sampling of 2,880 adults from Department of Provincial Administration, Ministry of Interior were enrolled in this study.

Methods: Two kinds of self-administered questionnaires, the first for general surgeons and the second for populations, were mailed to each group of the sample populations

Main outcome measures: All types and numbers of gastrointestinal complications from ingested Santol seeds and behavior of Santol consumption.

Results: 29.9% of general surgeons had experienced with gastrointestinal complications from ingested Santol seeds. From the year 2000-2002, there were 123 cases of these complications through out the country. The range of age was 20-84 year and the mean was 60.7 year. Perforation of distal part large intestine was the most common complication. For knowledge and behavior study, 94.6% of the sample populations ate Santol. 54.6% of the populations didn't know about these complications. In the populations who ate Santol, 41.2% ingested its seeds with the equal proportion between intentional and unintentional.

Conclusion: Ingested Santol seeds can cause many kinds of gastrointestinal complications. The most common and severe complication was rectum and sigmoid colon perforation. Santol seeds are probably the most common foreign body that causes gastrointestinal complications especially rectum and sigmoid colon perforation in Thailand. Nowadays, a lot of peoples never knows about these severe complications and still ingests its seeds. Any public relations relations should be distributed for preventing these unexpected conditions.

Key words: Gastrointestinal complications, Santol seeds

Vajira Med J 2004 ; 48 : 1 - 10