The development of intramural intestinal gas may indicate a serious postoperative complication and therefore any radiological indication of such "pneumatosis intestinalis" (PI) in an unwell patient after surgery should put the clinical team on high-alert. However immediate recourse to relook laparotomy may not be always necessary and, further, in some cases may possibly accelerate the deterioration especially if it proves to be non-therapeutic. Careful and close clinical monitoring, as is described in this clinical report, may allow discriminative identification of those in whom this finding is in fact transient and therefore benign and who therefore can be successfully treated without operative re-intervention. We describe the presenting features and background scenario of PI early after laparoscopic total colectomy for medically refractory, severe ulcerative colitis and detail the critical postoperative decision pivots.
Low rectal cancers metastase lymphatically to the pelvic side wall in addition to cephalad spread alongside the superior rectal/inferior mesenteric arterial axis. Radical surgery in the West has focused resectional intent and effort on the midline en bloc oncological package by Total Mesorectal Excision. While neoadjuvant chemo/ radiotherapy (now often administered to patients with radiologically locally advanced cancer) may contribute significant therapeutic effect to the lateral pelvic side walls, many patients with earlier preoperative stage low rectal cancer are offered surgery first (and indeed solely). Furthermore, some of those pretreated may have residual in situ lateral nodal disease and so risk understaging and undertreatment. Routine extended lymphadenectomy is on the otherhand unproven with respect to survival benefit and has likely no added role in the absence of definite (rather than possible) sidewall involvement. Near-infrared fluorescence pelvic side-wall delta mapping, as illustrated here in five patients undergoing abdominoperineal resection for rectal cancer after neoadjuvant therapy, may give the technological capacity to identify tumor site-draining nodes on the pelvic side and the focus the operating surgeon on this potential target for surgical resection (whether by berry picking or nerve sparing clearance) and prompt individualized diagnostic and therapeutic selection.
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