Introduction
Small-bowel obstruction (SBO) is one of the most common causes of emergency service admission. Prior abdominal surgery-related adhesions are the cause of 65-75% of cases. Hernias, neoplasms, Crohn’s disease, bezoars, foreign bodies and intussusceptions are other etiological causes of SBO.1, 2 Food-related SBO was described for many fruits including citrus fruit, persimmons, orange pith, mango, carrots, Brussels sprouts, wild banana and dried fruits. However, all those reports described phytobezoars as the mechanism of obstruction.3-5
Pear (Pyrus) is one of the most bred and consumed fruits in the world. There are hundreds of Pyrus species but only 23 wild species were described, all native to Europe, northern Africa and temperate regions of Asia.6 Oleaster-leafed pear (Pyrus elaeagnifolia Pall.) is one of the endemic wild pear species of Anatolia. Besides Turkey, it is grown also in south Ukraine, Albania, Bulgaria, Greece and Romania.6 The wild pear fruits mostly consumed by local people and also preferred especially for the treatment of diarrhea in traditional medicine in Turkey.7
In our city, this oleaster-leafed pear tree grows naturally and fruits are frequently consumed by local people during the harvest season. It was noticed that many patients who excessively consumed this wild pear for traditional diarrhea treatment admitted to the emergency department with a SBO presentation during the harvest season. In the present study, we aimed to describe this unfamiliar food-related SBO entity and compare clinical characteristics of it with those in adhesive SBO.