Minimizing Surgical Stress in Open Intestinal Surgery

Francesco Rulli, MD, Mario Stefani, Sasan Amirhassankhani

University of Rome ‘Tor Vergata’

One of the most problematic issues concerning Postoperative Ileus is the full recovery of the peristalsis following an open abdomen intestinal surgery intervention. We are presenting a technique which has been used to quicken the restoration of the peristalsis, due to an improved homeostasis and to the preservation of the physiological intestinal temperature values. Such effect can be achieved both in case of prearranged open surgery AND in case of laparoscopic surgery converted to open surgery as a matter of necessity through the execution of the Intraoperative Continuous Intestinal Loop Warming technique (ICLW) . The aforementioned procedure is easy to use and has a very low implementation cost. We investigated whether the usage of the ICLW decreases the recovery time (i.e. the amount of time from the end of the operation to the return of peristalsis) of intestinal function after surgery; data from one hundred patients was gathered for this analysis. Patients were randomly assigned into an experimental group (fifty patients) which was treated with ICLW during the surgical intervention and a control group (fifty patients) which did not receive this treatment. We used a saline solution (BAXTER® 0.9% Sodium Chloride solution) at about 35°-38° Celsius. Statistical data analysis (ANOVA) showed a significant difference concerning the recovery time between the two groups: on the average, patients belonging to the experimental group had a recovery time which was 25.68 hours shorter with a standard deviation (SD) of 16.120 hours than the control group ones. Therefore we can conclude that the employment of ICLW in open surgery substantially decreases recovery time. Our findings suggest a successful way to address one of the main concerns in intestinal occlusion surgery which will help to improve the post-intervention with an earlier recovery of the patients.

Session: Poster Presentation

Program Number: P494