Background:Mortality related to acute intestinal ischaemia remains very high. Patient survival is dependent on prompt recognition in order to deal with the ischaemic part either with revascularization or excision. Furthermore, if intestinal ends that are not perfectly vascularized, are anastomosed, this anastomosis is bound to fail causing peritonitis.At operation distinction of viable from non-viable intestine is not always easy. Frequently a bowel loop that looks healthy and is left in the abdomen will develop gangrene within one or two days. Hence the policy of second looks surgery. Waiting for fixed colour changes to develop may take a long time, actually very precious time is wasted. For this Horgan and, Gorey (1992) stressed for the need for only two tests, fluorescein assessment and Doppler.Aim of work:The aim of this work is to assess the sensitivity of IV fluorescein under ultraviolet light for detection of acute intestinal ischaemia, in comparison with the regular visual assessment.Patients and methods:This will be a prospective study that will involve twenty patients in whom, at surgery, there is a possibility of acute intestinal ischaemia.In each case the suspected part of intestine will be examined by the operator under two types of light: 1.Regular white light of the operating room. Ischaemia of the intestine will be assessed depending on the conventional criteria, namely colour change, mesenteric vessels pulsations and intestinal tone and peristalsis.2. Ultraviolet light, while injecting IV fluorescein sodium at a dose of 10mg/kg. Ischaemia of the intestine will be considered if part of the intestine will not show green fluorescence. Photographs will be taken under both conditions for later evaluation by other surgeons who are not involved in this research.Intestine that will be judged ischaemic by the fluorescence method will be excised, even if the conventional visualization judgment will not. This will leave brightly fluorescing intestine for anastomosis or for stoma formation.Assessment (end points)Result:Clinical judgment was accurately fair in (85%) whereas fluorescein was more accurate than clinical judgment (100%) the difference was statistically significant (p<0.05) as compared with clinical assessment. CONCLUSION:We can say that the combination of UV light and fluorescein dye should be considered a valuable diagnostic procedure both for dignosis of early stage of a cute bowel ischemia and for viability of stoma.