[Impact of laparoscopic surgery in the treatment of chronic abdominal pain syndrome].
Chronic abdominal pain syndrome is becoming increasingly important with regard to the quality of life of the patients and its social and economic impact, in terms of cost of hospitalization, income loss due to sick leave, and pharmaceutical costs for treatments which fail to offer either significant clinical improvement or resolution of the pain symptoms. The main symptom is chronic abdominal pain, which may vary in intensity and may be associated with constipation and episodes of vomiting, when the clinical picture evolves toward one of subocclusion or total occlusion of the bowel. We considered the following criteria in our selection of patients for this study: 1) quality of life, 2) constant use of antispastic and analgesic medications, 3) absence of any other diagnosticable pathology prior to the operation. From August 1992 to April 2000 we operated on 105 patients with this syndrome (16 males and 89 females). Among these 8 patients had never been subjected to a laparotomy, while 97 had previously undergone surgical procedures (126 laparotomies). In the first 85 patients in the series (81%) we used a 10 mm laparoscope (0-30 degrees) to evaluate the presence of abdominal-visceral adhesions based on the type of surgery the patient had undergone previously, as well as the location of the pain reported by the patient. In 41 cases (48.2%) the pneumoperitoneum was obtained with the Veress needle. In another 44 cases (51.8%) the Hasson technique was used. Since June 1999, we have carried out the exploration of the abdominal cavity in 20 patients (19%) using a trocar and 2.2 mm laparoscope in the left hypochondrium along with a mini-trocar placed either in the right or left flank. (The positioning of the trocars depended on the previous surgical procedures performed). The exploration included inspection of the abdominal cavity. In 8 of the patients the procedure was carried out under local anaesthesia We performed laparoscopic adhesiolysis in 93 cases; in 7 cases no signs of adhesions were seen, while in another 5 cases it was necessary to convert the original laparoscopic procedure to a laparotomy. The types of adhesions found were fine-filmy (46%), dense-vascularised (46%), and cohesive (16%). In 6 cases during lysis of the adhesions complications of serous-muscular lesions occurred, which required laparotomic repair. In 5 cases we diagnosed a pathological condition which was not suspected. The average postoperative hospital stay was 2 days (range: 1-7); no major postoperative complications were noted. In the course of the follow-up of 78 patients over an average of 37 months (range: 6-72) the results obtained were as follows; 47 patients (60.2%) had complete pain relief, 18 patients (23.1%) had partial pain relief, and the remaining 13 patients (16.7%) had no significant pain relief. Laparoscopic exploration in patients with chronic abdominal pain is technically feasible in a simple manner in most patients. By means of careful and accurate preoperative selection of the patients partial if not complete pain relief can be achieved in a high percentage of cases (83.3% in our series).
Di Lorenzo
Nicola
N
Cattedra di Chirurgia Generale, Università degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata.
Coscarella
Giorgio
G
Lirosi
Francesca
F
Faraci
Luca
L
Rossi
Piero
P
Pietrantuono
Maurizio
M
Manzelli
Antonio
A
Russo
Francesco
F
Gaspari
Achille Lucio
AL
D015746:Abdominal Pain / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology / Q000601:surgery*; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002908:Chronic Disease; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D010535:Laparoscopy; D007813:Laparotomy; D007902:Length of Stay; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D013577:Syndrome; D000267:Tissue Adhesions / Q000601:surgery*