Skin closure after laparotomy with staples or sutures: a study of the mature scar.

Background: Surgeons are divided in their method of choice for skin closure following laparotomy. We suggest that the most important determinant should be the resulting scar. This study aims to compare both patients' and independent observers' assessment of mature laparotomy scars that had been closed with either subcuticular sutures or external staples.

Stents or open operation for palliation of colorectal cancer: a retrospective, cohort study of perioperative outcome and long-term survival.

Purpose: Expandable, metallic stents provide a new modality of palliation for patients with noncurable metastatic colorectal adenocarcinoma. This study was designed to compare the use of expandable metallic stents as a palliative measure to traditional open surgical management, with particular reference to length of stay, and survival.

Methods: Patients admitted between 1997 and 2002 with left-sided (splenic flexure and distal), colorectal adenocarcinoma and nonresectable metastatic disease (Stage 4) were treated with expandable metal stents or open surgery (resection, bypass, or stoma).

Functional assessment of bacterial colonization in patients with ileal pouch-anal anastomosis and Brooke ileostomy.

Purpose: This study was designed to determine whether patients with an ileal pouch-anal anastomosis have increased gastrointestinal bacterial colonization as assessed functionally compared with patients with Brooke ileostomy and to determine the effect of pouch bacterial colonization on pouch function.

Methods: Gastrointestinal bacterial colonization in 27 patients with an ileal pouch-anal anastomosis and 20 patients with a Brooke ileostomy was assessed using the 14C-glycocholate and glucose-hydrogen breath tests. Bacterial colonization was correlated with pouch function and pouch satisfaction.

Abdominoperineal resection or low Hartmann's procedure.

Aim: To compare patients having low Hartmann's resection (LHP) with abdominoperineal resection (APR) by investigating postoperative complications.

Methods: Retrospective comparative analysis of preoperative state and postoperative course for patients having surgery from 1 January 1997 to 1 July 2001, by the surgeons of the Colorectal Unit, Christchurch Hospital, Christchurch, New Zealand.

Results: Over a 54-month period 65 patients underwent either LHP or APR (29 LHP, 36 APR).

Parastomal hernia following minimally invasive stoma formation.

Background: Minimally invasive intestinal stoma formation using a laparoscopic approach or through a trephine, is widely described in published literature. The incidence of parastomal hernia (PH) following a stoma formed without formal laparotomy is not well reported. The present review aims to assess the current data available on minimally invasive stoma formation, with particular reference to the incidence of PH.