Objective To approach the convenient prediction methods about surgical indications of adhesive ileus. Methods Two thousand and thirtyfour patients with adhesive ileus were analyzed retrospectively between January 1996 and January 2010 in the Department of General Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, and 1 992 patients were included into this model. Seventeen factors which could influence the surgical decisions, including period of intestinal obstruction (X1), frequency of attack (X2), history of operation on abdominal region (X3), continuous and severe abdominal pain (X4), severe or frequent vomiting (X5), severe abdominal distention (X6), hemafecia (X7), fever (X8), heart rate (X9), shock or hypotension (X10), touching a swell ansa intestinalis (X11), hypoactive bowel sound (X12), peritonitis (X13), white blood cell (WBC) count of peripheral blood (X14), obstruction ansa interstinalis fixation and a severe expansion by abdominal erect position plain film (X15), peritoneal cavity free air (X16), and seroperitoneum whether or not by B ultrasonic examination (X17) were analyzed by binary logistic regression. Then prediction schedule whether patients with adhesive ileus needed emergency operation was gained by the theory of logistic regression analysis. Results Eight items were included in the prediction model by the method of forward stepwise which were X1, X2, X4, X9, X13, X14, X15, and X17, respectively. The probability of operation could be calculated by the following formula: logit(P)=expZ/(1+expZ), where, Z={-7.813+〔-1.942×X1(1)/2.290×X1(2)/2.765×X1(3)〕+2.801×X2+2.692×X4+10.610×X9(1)/13.279×X9(2)+3.422×X13+〔-3.048×X14(1)/16.992×X14(2)〕+6.113×X15+2×X17}, which X1(1), X1(2), and X1(3) were periods of intestinal obstruction 3-5 d, 5-7 d, and ≥7 d, respectively. X9(1) and X9(2) were heart rates of 60-100/min and ≥100/min, respectively. X14(1) and X14(2) were WBC counts of peripheral blood of (10-20)×109/L and ≥20×109/L, respectively. The patient had to accept surgical procedure when the value of P was more than 0.5. The coincidence was 99.00%, sensitivity was 96.17%, specificity was 99.53% in 1 992 patients. The coincidence was 96.20%, sensitivity was 90.00%, specificity was 96.84% in 105 patients between January 2010 and April 2010 in this hospital. Conclusion The prediction schedule is a good useful value, but the coefficients is corrected following the cases increasing.