Incontinence in full-thickness rectal prolapse: low level of improvement after laparoscopic rectopexy.

AIM: The study aimed to quantify incontinence before and after laparoscopic rectopexy in patients suffering from rectal prolapse. METHOD: Eighty-five patients underwent laparoscopic rectopexy to treat rectal prolapse between 2003 and 2009. Symptomatic and functional data were collected prospectively before and after surgery by self-administered questionnaires including the Cleveland Clinic Fecal Incontinence Score (CCIS) and constipation, gastrointestinal quality of life and urinary incontinence questionnaires. Incontinence was considered to be present when the CCIS remained at ≥ 5 after surgery. RESULTS: After a mean follow-up period of 36 months after surgery, 83% of the patients reported good to excellent results. Continence was improved in 58 (68%), with a significant decrease in the continence score (-3.4 ± 5.8, P = 0.001). However, 50 (58.9%) patients remained incontinent: 47 (55%) reported urge incontinence and 27 (32%) had passive leakage. Incontinence for liquid stool, incontinence for solid stool and the need for protection was seen in 43 (51%), 35 (41%) and 43 (51%) patients. Manometry, defaecography and ultrasonography were not associated with any improvement. In contrast, the patients' average age (60.2 ± 15.8 vs 46.9 ± 15.5 years; P = 0.003), symptom duration before surgery (58.1 ± 70.1 vs 29.5 ± 33.3 months; P = 0.011), preoperative urinary incontinence score (10.7 ± 10.8 vs 4.2 ± 5.7; P = 0.0131) and faecal incontinence score (12.9 ± 4.9 vs 7.1 ± 6; P < 0.0001) were significantly higher in patients suffering from postoperative incontinence. CONCLUSION: Despite some continence improvement in two-thirds of patients who underwent surgery for rectal prolapse, the level of improvement remained low in more than half of the patients.

Bleeding pseudocysts and pseudoaneurysms in chronic pancreatitis.

Spontaneous haemorrhage associated with chronic pancreatitis in 17 patients was related to a pseudocyst in 15 (88 per cent) patients and to pancreatic lithiasis (one patient) or to infarction-rupture of the spleen (one patient). Bleeding was massive in six patients and intermittent in 11. It resulted from erosion of the gastroduodenal or the splenic artery in four patients. Bleeding into the pancreatic duct occurred in four patients and erosion of the duodenum by a bleeding pseudocyst in five. Haemorrhage was confined to a pseudocyst in six patients and was intraperitoneal in two. Of the 15 patients with bleeding pseudocysts, ten underwent primary pancreatic resection (eight proximal and two distal pancreatectomies) with no mortality but four had early complications. Four of the five patients who underwent transcystic ligation of bleeding vessels and pseudocyst drainage had postoperative complications: one died from sepsis and liver failure and three underwent reoperation for severe postoperative bleeding. Of these, two had proximal pancreatic resection with one death. The third patient had further suture ligation and external drainage. The overall postoperative mortality rate was 12 per cent and following emergency surgery 33 per cent. Favourable results were achieved in two-thirds of patients when the primary operative strategy could be directed towards the control of bleeding and removal of the affected pancreatic segment. Primary pancreatic resection, although technically demanding in the presence of haemorrhage, is recommended whenever possible for the treatment of bleeding pancreatic pseudocysts and pseudoaneurysms associated with chronic pancreatitis.

[Must we reject primary colostomy in left colonic obstruction caused by cancer?]. / Faut-il condamner la colostomie première dans les cancers coliques gauches en occlusion?

Treatment of left colonic cancer obstruction is not still clear. Many procedures can be done, simple decompressive colostomy by a local incisionnal way to subtotal colectomy with primary anastomosis. What can we do today? Retrospective study from 1983 to 1988 at Centre de Chirurgie Digestive de l'Hôpital Saint-Antoine (Paris) with 36 datas was done. The emergency treatment was 20 decompressive colostomies, 10 primary resections without anastomosis, 2 subtotal colectomies with ileo-sigmoid primary anastomosis, 2 left colectomies with primary anastomosis (2 with decompressive colostomy, one without) and one Hartmann procedure. One patient is dead after decompressive colostomy. After emergency decompressive colostomy, 16 patients (80%) were reoperated for colonic cancer resection, with suppression of the stomy fifteen times. There were 7 extra abdominal complications and 3 stomy complications (2 incisionnal hernias after closure of the stomy and one prolapse of a definitive colostomy). After emergency primary resection without anastomosis, 9 patients (90%) were reoperated for secondary anastomosis. Morbidity was 3 extra abdominal complications. The mean hospital stay was 28 days for these 2 groups. For all the patients with primary or secondary anastomosis there was no anastomotic leak. Decompressive colostomy as emergency procedure for left obstructing carcinoma is simple, efficiency and safe. It can be associated with low mortality and morbidity. To day, we still recommend this procedure.

[Spontaneous rupture of an adenoma of the liver during pregnancy]. / Rupture spontanée d'un adénome du foie pendant la grossesse.

Must often reporting to an hepatic subcapsular hemorrhage with pre or true eclampsia, Spontaneous rupture of adenoma of the liver during pregnancy is unusual entity. Very exceptionally cases of rupture of anatomic hepatic lesion underlying had been reported. About a new case, diagnosis, physiopathologic and management problems are approached.

[Mediastinal exploration by sternotomy in surgery of hyperparathyroidism. 36 cases]. / Explorations médiastinales par sternotomie dans la chirurgie de l'hyperparathyroïdie. 36 cases.

Mediastinal exploration by sternotomy was carried out 36 times in 35 patients with evidence of hyperparathyroidism amongst a group of 1,461 operations for hyperparathyroidism between 1962 and 1987. The exploration was indicated 30 times as re-operation for hyperparathyroidism persistent after one or more negative cervicotomy procedures or recurrent, and 6 times from the outset, (5 in a context of acute hypercalcemia). Exploration was positive 20 times (16 adenomas, 2 hyperplasias, 2 metastases of a parathyroid carcinoma), but negative 16 times (3 diagnostic errors, 6 cervical lesions discovered subsequently, 7 explorations totally negative). The site of mediastinal parathyroid lesions is usually intrathymic (13 cases) but may sometimes (3 cases) be in the middle mediastinum. Pre-operative investigation to identify the site of a possible mediastinal lesion, in re-operation surgery, remains unreliable, the best investigation in this series being thoracic CT scan with 63% true positives. Thallium-Technetium subtraction isotope scan, carried out once with a good result, should now have a place amongst investigations. The principal post-operative complication is hypoparathyroidism which can be prevented by cryopreservation of a fragment of the lesion for possible subsequent reimplantation. Mediastinal exploration is rarely indicated in hyperparathyroid surgery and should be undertaken only after meticulous cervical exploration.