Subcutaneous Destruction of Sinus Tract with Long-term Vessel Loop Drainage as a Minimally Invasive Surgical Treatment for Primary Pilonidal Sinus.

The surgical management of pilonidal disease ranges from minimally invasive techniques to wide excision with secondary wound healing. Hypothetical counterarguments for using the minimally invasive techniques are that these techniques only incompletely remove the sinus tract and that they allow the formation of subcutaneous cavities as a result of rapid closure of small skin incisions. In order to avoid these problems we used a vessel loop drainage after subcutaneous destruction of the sinus tract. In this technique we combined two procedures: a narrow excision of pilonidal orifices with the subcutaneous destruction of the sinus tract and the removal of hair as well as the long-term vessel loop drainage of the wound channel with repeated revisions of the wound channel for removing hair remnants. In order to assess the efficacy and morbidity of this method 5 patients with primary symptomatic pilonidal sinus underwent an operation as a pilot study. Up to the removal of the vessel loop the wound channel had been regularly inspected using a mosquito clamp. If during two successive inspections no hair from the wound was found the vessel loop was removed. No adverse events occurred such as abscess or recurrent pilonidal sinus. One female patient with a history of long-term use of morphine derivatives and psychotropic substances experienced persistent coccygeal pain that persisted longer than 6 weeks. The complete wound healing with the formation of a qualitative scar took place on the 21st postoperative day (for 3 patients) and on the 28th postoperative day (for 2 patients). Initial results suggest that this operation is an effective procedure for the treatment of primary simple pilonidal sinus disease and we will continue to systematically test it.