The natural history of complicated diverticular disease based on details of 300 patients entered into a national audit between 1985 and 1988 is reported. Questionnaires were sent to the general practitioners of 176 patients with this condition 5 years after hospital admission; 120 responded. Of these 120 patients, ten died from recurrent complicated diverticular disease, 29 died from other disorders and 81 remain alive. Forty of 110 patients (excluding those who died from recurrence) are still symptomatic or were so at the time of unrelated death. Thirty-nine patients developed a severe complication after the index admission, 14 of whom had the same complication initially. Of the 77 patients who had initially been managed by sigmoid resection, only two developed recurrent complications compared with 37 of 43 managed conservatively. Of the ten patients who died from recurrent diverticular disease, nine had not undergone sigmoid colectomy at or after the original admission. These data argue for interval sigmoid colectomy in most patients who initially present to hospital with complicated diverticular disease to prevent later development of potentially lethal complications.
Details of 300 patients with complicated diverticular disease from 30 hospitals between 1985 and 1988 were entered into a national audit organized by the Surgical Research Society. Complications present on admission included acute phlegmon (n = 104), pericolic abscess (n = 34), purulent peritonitis (n = 40), large bowel obstruction (n = 31), faecal peritonitis (n = 23), pericolic abscess complicated by fistula (n = 28) and lower gastrointestinal bleeding (n = 40). The overall mortality rate was 11.3 per cent (acute phlegmon, 4 per cent; purulent peritonitis, 27 per cent; pericolic abscess, 12 per cent; faecal peritonitis, 48 per cent; large bowel obstruction, 6 per cent; bleeding, 2 per cent; fistula, 4 per cent). Acute phlegmon was treated without operation in 78 patients (75.0 per cent) and by resection in 24 (23.1 per cent). Management of purulent peritonitis generally involved Hartmann's procedure (62 per cent) or resection and primary anastomosis (15 per cent). Similarly, patients with pericolic abscess usually underwent Hartmann's procedure (38 per cent) or resection and primary anastomosis (35 per cent). The principal operation for faecal peritonitis was Hartmann's resection (83 per cent). Large bowel obstruction was managed conservatively in four patients (13 per cent), by Hartmann's procedure in nine (29 per cent), and by resection and primary anastomosis with or without a proximal stoma in 13 (42 per cent). Most patients (82 per cent) with fistula associated with an abscess were managed by resection and primary anastomosis; 90 per cent with acute gastrointestinal bleeding were treated without operation.
A study was performed to investigate whether acute reservoir ileitis (pouchitis) is associated with specific changes in mucosal morphology, crypt cell kinetics and faecal bacteriology in the ileal pouch. Forty-six patients were studied (ileal reservoir, 36; end ileostomy, ten) using clinical grading, sigmoidoscopy and biopsy; 24 patients with a reservoir were restudied after therapy for 1 month with metronidazole 400 mg three times daily. An index of villus atrophy and crypt cell production rate (CCPR) were determined in all biopsy material. Faecal bacteriology was assessed in 12 patients with a pouch before and after metronidazole therapy. The mucosa of patients with pouchitis was associated with a lower villus atrophy index (P = 0.052), a higher CCPR (P = 0.03) and a higher grade of acute inflammation than that in those without pouchitis. There was no difference in faecal bacterial counts between patients with and without pouchitis. A low atrophy index correlated with a high CCPR (P < 0.001), worse functional score (P < 0.001) and more severe pouch mucosal acute inflammation (P < 0.001), but not with faecal bacteriology. Following metronidazole therapy there was resolution of acute pouch inflammation, increased villus atrophy index (P = 0.049), decreased CCPR (P = 0.049) but no differences in faecal bacterial counts apart from Bacteroides species. These data show that metronidazole therapy does not specifically alter the growth of common faecal bacteria in patients with pouchitis, apart from Bacteroides species. However, metronidazole causes resolution of the typical changes in pouch mucosal morphology and crypt cell kinetics associated with pouchitis.
In a prospective, randomized control trial, 152 consecutive patients requiring emergency or complicated colorectal surgery were allocated either to two doses of cefotetan or to five-day cover with gentamicin, and a single dose of metronidazole. Twenty-one patients received 6 gm of cefotetan before prolongation of prothrombin time dictated a change in the dose regimen such that all remaining patients (N = 55) received only 4 gm of cefotetan. The groups were well matched for diagnosis and surgical procedure. Rates of postoperative infection did not differ significantly between the groups, with wound infection rates occurring in 17 of 75 patients receiving gentamicin and metronidazole (22.7 percent) compared with ten of 75 receiving cefotetan (13 percent). Although wound infection rates were lower in the cefotetan group, the incidence of intra-abdominal abscess was similar in both groups. Eight patients receiving cefotetan developed intra-abdominal abscesses (11 percent), compared with seven receiving gentamicin and metronidazole (9 percent). Prolongation of prothrombin time in excess of 13 seconds occurred in six patients receiving cefotetan compared with no patients receiving gentamicin and metronidazole. None of these patients developed clinical bleeding, however.
Using a recently developed, low mortality model of an intra-abdominal abscess in the Wistar rat, we have studied the penetration of fleroxacin into the abscess. Maximum serum concentration was 1.83 +/- 0.39 mg l and occurred 1 h after iv injection (20 mg/kg), but even at 4 h after administration the mean serum level was 1.21 +/- 0.27 mg/l. By contrast, levels in pus were 6.27 +/- 0.83 mg/l at 1 h rising steadily to a value of 12.7 +/- 3.69 mg/l at 4 h. The study has confirmed exceptional antibiotic penetration into the abscess, with levels at all time intervals between 0.5 and 8 h after administration in excess of the MIC50 for Escherichia coli, Proteus vulgaris and Clostridium perfringens.
Following a previous study of the gross anatomical and histological features of the adult umbilical vein, a histological and radiological investigation has been made on post-mortem material, to determine the route taken by probes and catheters introduced into the hemisected vein, to obtain access to the portal system.Although a residual part of the original lumen persists, it is far too small in diameter (approximately 0.2 mm) to admit probes and catheters. The instruments traverse a loose inner zone (the 'apparent lumen') and form a false passage within it. This zone, which is formed postnatally, is paler and of softer consitency than the surrounding zones, but since it becomes more fibrous and contracted in later life, instrumentation could prove more difficult in the elderly.At the umbilical-portal junction, the probe is arrested by the diverging right wall of the terminal expansion of the left branch of the portal vein (the recessus umbilicalis). Local rupture of the inner part of the wall by probe pressure gives access to the portal system. Without prior probing, contrast medium injected locally into the apparent lumen does not reach the portal system.
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