Recurrent Postoperative Adhesive Intestinal Obstruction: Role of Early Operative Intervention as a Primary Management
##plugins.themes.academic_pro.article.main##
Abstract
Introduction: Post-operative adhesions are one of the most common causes of intestinal obstruction. Developing countries has its incidence around 45% and 60% in developed countries. Recurrence rate of intestinal obstruction is upto 45%1 and mortality rate is as high as 10%2. There is a lot of confusion in management of these cases in terms of operative intervention in early stages according to different studies, however spectrum of intraoperative findings observed with postoperative obstruction and their predilection to nature of past laprotomy has bought some stability in management of recurrent postoperative adhesive obstruction. The fact which favours early operative intervention is that it decreases the frequency of obstructive episodes and also increases the duration between them which is the basis of the present study.
Objectives: To study the efficacy of early operative intervention in the patients with recurrent post operative adhesive obstruction along with finding the cause of obstruction, whether correctable and to study the impact of surgery in patients with multiple dense adhesions.
Materials and Methods: This is a prospective study carried out at our institute between April 2009 to March 2014, selecting patients with recurrent postoperative intestinal obstruction having 2nd or more attack excluding those having 1st attack and cause other than post -operative adhesion.
Observations: Recurrent post operative adhesive intestinal obstruction is more common in the age group 41-50 years(32.81%) with predominance in male(65.62%). 97.62% cases were occurred following single laprotomy, 68.75% laprotomies were done in emergency setting. Appendicectomy was the most common emergency surgery and Obstetrics and gynecological surgeries were the most common elective surgeries as a cause. 65.72% of cases had 2 attacks of obstructive symptoms with duration between past laprotomy and 2nd attack was between 13months to 2years(23.43%). 59.37% cases had correctable causes of postoperative adhesions while 40.62% had multiple dense adhesions as a cause of which no patient had any episode of obstructive symptoms on follow up.
Conclusion: Postoperative adhesions are more common following appendicectomy, obstretical and gynecological surgeries with two third patients presenting with correctable cause and surgeries on multiple dense adhesions increases the duration between recurrent episodes and decreases number of obstructive episodes