title: Posterior sagittal resection for rectal aganglionosis: preliminary results of a new approach.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  There is no general agreement about how patients who have short-segment Hirschsprung's disease should be treated.
  
  
  METHODS
  Ten patients with Hirschsprung's disease, seven with rectal and three with rectosigmoidal aganglionosis, were operated on through a posterior sagittal incision. In nine patients, a primary rectal resection and coloanal anastomosis was performed. In one patient, a longitudinal posterior myectomy of the rectum was performed as a primary procedure, but the procedure was eventually converted to a rectal resection and coloanal anastomosis through the same incision.
  
  
  RESULTS
  One early and one late anastomotic complication occurred. Both were successfully treated with a temporary fecal diversion (left-sided colostomy for 6 to 8 weeks). The functional results as evaluated with anorectal manometry were similar to a group of Hirschsprung's patients treated with transabdominal pull-through resection and coloanal anastomosis.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This approach might prove to be a useful alternative both to the transabdominal resection and the posterior longitudinal rectal myectomy in Hirschsprung's disease with rectal aganglionosis.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hedlund
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006627:Hirschsprung Disease / Q000601:surgery*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D012002:Rectal Diseases / Q000601:surgery*; D012810:Sigmoid Diseases / Q000601:surgery