Evaluation of Post Operative Peritoneal Lavage to Prevent Recurrent Adhesive Intestinal Obstruction

Abstract

Objective: to evaluate the effectiveness of postoperative peritoneal lavage (PPL) in prevention of recurrent Adhesive Small Bowel Obstruction (ASBO).Patients and methods: a total of 36 patients were included in this study. All of these patients suffered from ASBO. They were randomized into two groups. Group I (18 patients) were treated with adhesiolysis followed by PPL and group II (18 patients) were treated with adhesiolysis alone . Patients w e r e followed up for an average period of 15 months to detect the incidence of recurrent ASBO. Results: :In group1 only one (5.6%) patient had an attack of ASBO which responded to conservative management and did not need redo operation while in group II s e v e n ( 3 8 . 9 % ) p a t i e n t s developed a recurrent episode of ASBO f o u r o f t h e m ( 2 2 . 2 % ) n e e d e d s u r g i c a l r e e x p l o r a t i o n . So the rate of surgical reoperation in group 1 was zero in comparison to group 2 which was( 16.6%). Conclusion: PPL is a new hope for prevention of recurrent ASBO that achieved statistically significant reduction in the recurrence rate and surgical redo.