Diverticulitis coli complicated by diffuse peritonitis

Emergency Resection in Treatment of Diverticular Disease of Colon Complicated by Peritonitis

“…It is clear from the present series that it is not a dangerous operation, for all the patients with purulent peritonitis survived, and this contrasts strongly with our earlier series (Dawson et al, 1965), in which transverse colostomy and drainage carried a mortality of approximately 30%. In that series the mortality of purulent peritonitis for the series as a whole varied between 50% and 29%, depending on whether or not a perforation was readily evident.…”

“…Certainly they are nothing like as difficult as some elective resections for chronic diverticular disease. The most likely explanation of this is that only in a very small percentage of patients with " perforated diverticulitis " has the disease been sufficiendy chronic to cause previous symptoms (Dawson et al, 1965). This may account for the relative paucity of pericolic fibrosis in the very patients in whom we feel emergency resection is most required.…”

“…MacLaren (1957) and Dawson, Hanon, and Roxburgh (1965) reported mortality rates of approximately 25 % for patients under 60 years of age and approximately 50% for those over 60.…”

Diagnostic ultrasound of acute colonic diverticulitis by surgical residents

“…The clinical diagnosis is rarely more accurate than 75% [3,5]. However, assessing the site and severity of the disease is important, particularly in complicated diverticulitis, since the outcome largely depends on a timely diagnosis [7,8].…”

Distal colomyotomy: Follow-up of 37 cases

“…Smithwick (1942) reported a mortality of 24 per cent for perforation, 9 per cent for abscess and 19 per cent for bladder fistula, and nearly 30 years later the operative mortality reported for patients with perforated diverticular disease was 41 per cent in 17 patients, with an overall mortality of 26.5 per cent in 70 patients undergoing surgery for complicated diverticular disease (MacGregor et al, 1970). Similarly, in another series of 93 patients with acute diverticulitis there was an 'inevitable mortality' of 15 per cent (Dawson et al, 1965), andWilson (1970) reported a mortality of 11.4 per cent in 44 patients operated on for complications of diverticular disease. In a study of 455 patients admitted to hospital for acute diverticular disease in Belfast, 158 came to early surgery, with a mortality of 10.7 per cent (Parks and Connell, 1970).…”