To study the multi-slice spiral computed tomography (MSCT) manifestations of gastrointestinal tract (GIT) and mesenteric tumor and tumor-like lesions in children and correlation with pathologic findings. 22 patients (17 male, 5 female; age ranged from 3 days to 11 years; with mean of 4.2 years) were screened out by ultrasonography (US) at first, then were performed with abdominal non-enhanced CT (NECT) and contrast-enhanced CT (CECT) scans. All CT images were evaluated independently by two radiologists and a consensus was reached regarding the morphologic features for lesions such as size, solid/cyst, unilocular/multilocular and thin/thick wall characteristics. The 26 lesions were categorized into two groups based on CT characteristics of lesions' nature, group 1 with the prominent cystic lesions, group 2 with prominent solid lesions. Group 1 was further divided into two subgroups: group 1A for the cystic lesions with thin walls, and group 1B for the cystic lesions with thick walls. In group 1A, 7 lesions were unilocular cysts (6 lymphangioma, 1 ileum mesenteric cyst) and 5 were multilocular cysts with internal septation (4 lymphangioma, 1 greater omental cyst). In group 1B, 10 lesions in 7 patients were unilocular without internal septation, which had two kinds of shape-cystic and tubular, their histopathological types were all enteric duplication cyst (10 segments, with two patients with 2 or 3 segments each); In group 2, all lesions had solid mass (2 gastrointestinal stromal tumors and 2 enteric non-Hodgkin's lymphoma). The majority of gastrointestinal tumors and tumor-like lesions are cystic and benign. MSCT manifestations of cystic/solid and thin/thick wall may be great helpful for differentiating different types of GIT and mesenteric lesions. MSCT manifestations have close correlations with their topographic sites and histopathologic findings.
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