From April 1984 to December 1997, a series of nine operated cases of malignant lymphoma of the small intestine were experienced at the institution. Of these nine cases, preoperative ultrasonography (US) was performed in eight cases and the tumor was successfully detected in five out of eight cases, a tumor detecting rate being 63%. These five cases in which US detected the tumor preoperatively were subjected to a study of comparing US findings with pathological findings on those resected materials.
On US, there were two cases of intussusception type presenting multicentric ring sign; one case of wall thickening and strictured lumen type visualized as hypoechoic, whole-circumferential wall thickening with a narrowing of the lumen, and the remaining two cases of wall thickening and lumen patent type presenting hypoechoic whole-circumfential thickening of the wall with maintained lumen longitudinally. Macroscopic types of resected materials were compared with US findings based on classification advocated by Ota and coworkers referring the Wood's classification. Results with US well corresponded to those by Ota's classification, namely, tumor type corresponded to intussusception type, stricture type to wll thickening and lumen stricture type, wall thickening type to wall thickening and lumen patent type, respectively.