Causes and management of postoperative enterocutaneous fistulas.

Objective: To identify the causes of postoperative enterocutaneous fistulas and to evaluate the results of conservative and operative treatment including the effectiveness of octreotide in the management of these fistulas.

Design: A descriptive study.

Place And Duration Of Study: Department of Surgery, Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences, Jamshoro / Hyderabad between January 1997 and December 2001.

Subjects And Methods: Forty patients with postoperative fistula were studied. Demographic variables, causes and management outcome was observed and recorded.

Results: There were 25 males and 15 females with 50% of the patients being in age group of 21-30 years. Emergency surgery for typhoid perforation(45%) and intestinal tuberculosis (30%) were the commonest causes. Ileum and jejunum were the commonest sites of fistulation found in 85% cases. Twenty-one patients were started on conservative treatment with spontaneous closure occurring in 15 (71.4%) patients. Nineteen patients were operated within three days of admission due to generalized peritonitis (73.7%) and local intra-abdominal collections (26.3%). Wound infection was the commonest complication in the operative group. The mortality rate in this series was 7.5%. All the deaths occurred following surgery.

Conclusion: Postoperative enterocutaneous fistula has a high morbidity and a significant mortality. Sepsis in the peritoneal cavity is the major cause of mortality. Conservative treatment has a good outcome for these fistulas. The use of octreotide is highly recommended as it definitely converts high output fistulas to low output fistulas.