Emphasis on the early diagnosis of acute mesenteric ischemia             WANG Shen-ming, LI Zi-lun. Department of Vascular Surgery, the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China
Corresponding author：WANG Shen-ming，E-mail：shenmingwang@vip.sohu.com
Abstract    Acute mesenteric ischemia (AMI) is characterized by rapid and occult onset，and easily leads to misdiagnosis and missed diagnosis，causing high mortality. Emphasis on early diagnosis of AMI is the key to save ischemic intestine and improve prognosis. Understanding the causes of AMI helps to identify its clinical manifestations and imaging features. For patients with acute abdomen，the cause should be determined based on the symptoms，signs and dynamic changes as early as possible. The differential diagnosis of AMI should be kept in mind and imaging tests should be performed as soon as possible. Multislice spiral CT has become a first-line diagnostic tool for AMI，while mesenteric angiography remains the gold standard for the diagnosis of AMI. It can show the morphology of vascular lesions, and endovascular treatment can also be carried out simultaneously. Being familiar with the common causes of AMI, finding valuable clues from untypical clinical manifestations, including AMI in the list of suspected and differential diagnosis, and promptly arranging quick and efficient imaging test, one can minimize the time of diagnosing AMI so as to save valuable treatment time for salvaging the ischemic bowel.