Failed ultrasound-guided hydrostatic reduction in pediatric intussusception: surgical-pathological characterization of failure phenotypes under a standardized protocol.
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BACKGROUND: Ultrasound-guided hydrostatic reduction (UGHR) represents the first-line treatment for pediatric intussusception. However, treatment failure remains a persistent clinical challenge, driven largely by unrecognized pathological lead points (PLPs) before intervention. Large-cohort studies with complete surgical and pathological verification of all failed cases under a unified protocol remain scarce, leaving the true etiology and clinical phenotype of UGHR failure incompletely defined. PURPOSE: To define the distinct clinicopathological phenotype and surgical findings associated with UGHR treatment failure in a fully verified patient cohort, and to evaluate the safety and efficacy of the standardized protocol within which these failures occurred. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of 2,882 children with acute intussusception managed with a standardized UGHR protocol (fixed pressure parameters, real-time ultrasound monitoring, predefined termination criteria) between 2021 and 2025. All 32 patients with failed reduction underwent mandatory emergency surgical exploration and histopathological examination, establishing a "surgical truth" dataset for comprehensive failure characterization. Analyses were intentionally descriptive and centered on deep phenotyping of this fully verified failure cohort rather than predictive modeling across the entire study population. RESULTS: The standardized protocol achieved an overall success rate of 98.89% (2,850/2,882) with zero intra-procedural perforations. Among the 32 failure cases, 21(65.63%) were secondary intussusception caused by PLPs, most commonly Meckel diverticulum(n = 10) and Burkitt lymphoma (n = 4). A consistent high-risk phenotype was identified in PLP-related failures: age > 36 months (52.4%), symptom duration > 24 h (81.0%), bloody stool (61.9%), peritoneal fluid (71.4%), and atypical anatomical subtypes (ileoileocolic or small bowel intussusception). Notably, 91.7% (11/12) of children aged > 36 months in the failure cohort had a confirmed PLP. CONCLUSION: A rigorously standardized UGHR protocol is highly effective and safe for pediatric intussusception. Most treatment failures are attributable to occult PLPs, which cluster within a recognizable high-risk clinical phenotype. The extremely high PLP rate in older children with failed reduction (11/12, 91.7% in > 36 months) suggests a clinically relevant age-associated consideration for surgical suspicion, though based on a small subgroup. Integrating standardized protocol implementation with phenotype-guided surgical triage optimizes the balance between non-operative success and timely identification of underlying pathology.