Clinical presentation:
Middle-aged woman, with recent change in bowel habit.

The erect plain film views shows a complex appearance with a series of gas-filled ring-shadows in the left hypochondrium that broadly take the form of an inverted "U", corresponding to the loop of the splenic flexure. This is overlapped by gas in the fundus of the stomach. The barium enema confirms the location and demonstrates the peripheral nature of the gas 'lucencies' that project beyond the opacified lumen of the splenic flexure of colon and create intraluminal defects in the contrast. No mediastinal or lung abnormality is visible. The breast shadows are responsible for the soft-tissue boundaries in the mid-line.