To the Editor.—I was interested to read of the experiences of Wong et al (Arch Surg 108:249, 1974) in managing a patient with a perforated diverticulitis of the transverse colon. Although this is a rare lesion, my colleagues and I have had the opportunity to operate on six patients with this condition during the past several years, with two of these being my own patients. Our experiences have been summarized in an article ("Perforated Diverticulitis of the Transverse Colon") that will be published in the American Journal of Surgery this year.
A preoperative diagnosis of acute appendicitis was made in four instances, acute peritonitis in one, and the sixth patient, who had a more chronic course, was believed to have a carcinoma of the colon or a perforated diverticulitis. At operation, the benign nature of this disease process was fairly apparent and a segmental resection of part of the