1 Departments of Surgery and Oncology, Denver Children's Hospital, Denver, Colorado
Acute cholangitis, an unusual cause of acute abdomen, occurred in a 5-year-old child with acute lymphocytic leukemia in remission. Possible pathomechanisms of cholangitis were (1) vascular spread or (2) ascending ductal spread of infection from the gastrointestinal tract in an immunosuppressed host. The patient improved following surgical decompression of her biliary tree. She survives in continuous complete remission for 27 months and is nine months postotiveerative without complications.