Laparoscopic elective treatment of diverticular disease. A comparison between laparoscopic-assisted and resection-facilitated techniques.

BACKGROUND: Because of the presence of significant inflammatory reaction, elective surgical laparoscopic-assisted treatment of complicated diverticular disease can be difficult, leading to a high conversion and complication rate. Laparoscopic alternatives to this assisted approach consist of the hand-assisted method and the more conventional facilitated laparoscopic sigmoid resection. Facilitated laparoscopic sigmoid resection implies laparoscopic mobilization of the sigmoid as much as possible and splenic flexure when called for. Through a Pfannenstiel incision, the difficult steps of the operation-such as the dissection of the inflammatory process and taking down the fistula, but also resection and manual anastomosis-can be performed. In this study, we compare the operating time, conversion rate, complications, and costs of both assisted and resection-facilitated techniques.

METHODS: We compared two consecutive series of 35 patients with diverticular disease who underwent a sigmoid resection by laparoscopy. Both groups were comparable in terms of age, gender, and kind of complicated diverticular disease.

RESULTS: The operating time, conversion rate, and costs were all less in the laparoscopic-facilitated group. The fact that there were no conversions in this group is the most important finding of this study. Not only was it possible to convert from the assisted laparoscopic approach to laparotomy (five patients of 35), it was also possible to convert from the assisted to the facilitated form (seven of 35 patients).

CONCLUSIONS: Laparoscopic-facilitated sigmoid resection is a feasible intervention for all forms of complicated diverticular disease and yields marked reductions in operating time, conversion rate, and operative and general costs.