Abstract
Conventional wisdom indicates that, provided that there is no peritonitis, a reasonably good-risk patient who has been properly resuscitated can safely undergo an emergency right colectomy and ileocolic anastomosis. In this case one might expect, perhaps, a 3% rate of anastomotic leakage. However, there are very few published reports of large series of patients undergoing emergency surgery for complete right colon obstruction. Following curative resection of obstructed right colon cancer, Serpell and associates reported a postoperative mortality rate of 3.7%, compared with 14.3% for resections of obstructed left colon tumors. In their experience, resecting an obstructed right colon lesion was no more dangerous than resecting an unobstructed right colon cancer.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Kronberg O. The missing randomized trial of two surgical treatments for acute obstruction due to carcinoma of the left colon and rectum. Int J Colorect Dis 1986;1: 162–166.
Runkel NS, Schlag P, Schwarz V et al. Outcome after emergency surgery for cancer of the large intestine. Br J Surg 1991;78:183–188.
Serpell JW, McDermott FT, Katrivessis H, Hughes ESR. Obstructing carcinomas of the colon. Br J Surg 1989; 76:965–969.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1994 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Chassin, J.L. (1994). Operations for Colon Obstruction. In: Operative Strategy in General Surgery. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-4169-8_47
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-4169-8_47
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4757-4171-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-4757-4169-8
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive