The initial barium enema examination demonstrates the pathognomonic findings of an intussusception, characterized by a coiled-spring appearance of the barium coating the margins of an elongated intraluminal filling defect. The coiled-spring appearance is due to a thin layer of barium trapped between the intussuscipiens and the intussusceptum. At the time of the second film, when the intussusception had been reduced by the hydrostatic pressure of the barium column, a mass lesion in the cecum is demonstrated. This mass subsequently proved to be a cecal carcinoma.

The vast majority of intussusceptions occur in children under the age of 2 years. Intussusception in adults is usually caused by a tumor; when the intussusception is colonic, the underlying tumor is most often malignant. The most common cause is a polypoid cecal carcinoma, although other lesions such as a lipoma, lymphomatous mass, or even a cecal endometrioma may be responsible.

Barium enema examination may temporarily reduce the intussusception and thereby demonstrate the underlying tumor. On computed tomography, intussusception may be visualized as a sausage-shaped soft-tissue mass, sometimes with an eccentric crescent of contained fat due to the entrapped mesentery of the involved bowel.