ABSTRACT
Background: Wound infection and scarring are relatively common complication after stoma reversal. Immediate skin closing by conventional linear closure technique is associated with varying percentage of wound infection ranging from 2 to 41%. Delayed skin closure is associated with prolonged healing time and poor scar cosmesis. In order to overcome these problems, an alternative method of skin closure during stoma reversal has been suggested. It involves taking purse-string subcuticular absorbable sutures to close the skin during Ileostomy reversal. Our study is a comparative study between conventional linear skin closure and this alternative form skin closure in stoma closure procedures for the assessment of surgical site infection and scar cosmesis.Methods: 40 patients were enrolled for the study, divided in two groups, one undergoing purse-string skin closing (n=20) and the other undergoing linear skin closure (n=20) during stoma reversal. All the data was analysed using IBM SPSS version 21.0 taking p value less than 0.05 was taken as level of significance.Results: Surgical site infections were seen in 3 out of 20 patients in whom purse-string skin closure was done, while it was 9 out of 20 patients in primary linear closure during stoma reversal group. Post-operative pain was found significantly lesser in purse-string group compared to linear closure group on same and first post-operative day. Scar cosmesis was assessed using patient and observer scar assessment scale and was observed better in purse-string group of patients.Conclusions: Purse-string skin closure is a better alternative surgical option to consider during stoma reversal surgeries as compared to conventional linear closure.