Ghost Ileostomy with or without abdominal parietal split.

BACKGROUND: In patients who undergo low anterior rectal resection, the fashioning of a covering stoma (CS) is still controversial. In fact, a covering stoma (ileostomy or colostomy) is worsened by major complications related to the procedure, longer recovery time, necessity of a re-intervention under general anesthesia for stoma closure and poorer quality of life. The advantage of Ghost Ileostomy (GI) is that an ileostomy can be performed only when there is clinical evidence of anastomotic leakage, without performing further interventions with related complications when anastomotic leak is absent and therefore the procedure is not necessary. Moreover, in case of anastomotic dehiscence and necessity of delayed stoma opening, mortality and morbidity in patients with GI are comparable with the ones that occur in patients which had a classic covering stoma. On the other hand, is simple to think about the possible economic saving: avoiding an admission for performing the closure of the ileostomy, with all the costs connected (OR, hospitalization, post-operative period, treatment of possible complications) represents a huge saving for the hospital management and also raise the quality of life of the patients. METHODS: In this study we prospectively analyzed 20 patients who underwent anterior extra-peritoneal rectum resection for rectal carcinoma with TME and fashioning of GI realized with or without abdominal parietal split. RESULTS: In the group of patients that received a GI without split laparotomy mortality was absent and in one case an anastomotic leak occurred. In the group of patients in which GI with split laparotomy was fashioned, one death occurred and there were one case of infection and one respiratory complication. Clinical follow-up was 12 months. CONCLUSIONS: The use of different techniques for fashioning a GI do not present significant differences when they are performed by expert surgeons, but further evidence is needed with more randomized trials, in order to have more data supporting the clinical observation.

[Technical and organisational considerations regarding surgical debulking]. / Alcune considerazioni tecniche e organizzative sull'oncocitoriduzione chirurgica.

The Authors report on their experience with debulking surgery, based on 46 patients affected by advanced cancers and treated between January 2001 and May 2003 to reduce the tumour mass. Thirty-eight out of 46 (82%) were women. The Authors performed 23 pelvic peritonectomies, 16 multicompartmental peritonectomies according to the Sugarbaker technique, 8 hysterectomies with bilateral ovariectomy, 4 ureteral resections with end-to-end reconstruction, 4 pelvic lymphectomies and 2 resections of the bladder. No perioperative mortality is reported, and major morbidity amounted to less than 5%. The Authors stress the problems encountered while performing debulking surgery and are of the opinion that the majority of the problems could be overcome by precise organization in dedicated surgical centres specifically or mainly devoted to surgical debulking.