Emergency laparoscopy in patients submitted previously to abdominal surgery: a study of 20 cases.

The authors performed 20 laparoscopies in patients previously submitted to abdominal surgery, in whom after clinical evaluation by the medical staff, the existence of intra-abdominal affection was still questioned. In this study group 14 patients exhibited more than 19 days old former abdominal incisions while in six patients they were recent ones. The incisions were median and para-median, McBurney incisions and Pfannenstiel incisions; one patient had been previously submitted to laparoscopy. The laparoscopic findings were hemoperitoneum, encapsulating peritonitis, ascites, subphrenic abscess, acute adnexitis, acute traumatic pancreatitis, genital tuberculosis, acute cholecystitis and one case of peritonitis due to a hollow viscus perforation by a fish bone. In one patient presenting encapsulating peritonitis the laparoscopic examination was complicated by a hollow viscus perforation.