Retrograde long intestinal tube splinting: a safe and effective treatment for preventing recurrent adhesive small bowel obstruction.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Long intestinal tube splinting (LITS) is a strategy that helps to reduce the recurrence of adhesive small bowel obstruction (ASBO) by fixing the bowel to ensure a favorable lie. Even though anterograde LITS is favored by most surgeons, its postoperative complications are noteworthy. Retrograde LITS was hardly reported in previous studies.

METHODOLOGY: A retrospective analysis was performed on all patients who had retrograde LITS for postoperative ASBO between December 2001 and 2008 at our unit. Medical records were reviewed. Patients were followed up by telephone to identify recurrent ASBO.

RESULTS

There were 162 patients received retrograde LITS. The overall complication rate was 8%, and the tube splinting complication rate was 0.6%. The average length of follow-up was 75±28.1 months (from 5 to 131 months). The incidence of recurrent ASBO was 5.4%.

CONCLUSIONS

The results show that retrograde LITS is an effective method for preventing recurrent ASBO. Its overall complication rate and tube splinting rate are lower than anterograde LITS.