Abstract
[Objectives]
We examined the characteristics of postoperative small bowel obstruction (SBO) after laparoscopy-assisted colectomy (LAC) for colorectal cancer.
[Methods]
We had performed LAC completed without conversion to open surgery in 220 patients diagnosed with colorectal cancer between January 2009 and June 2012. In these, we evaluated the postoperative cases with SBO which developed within a year after LAC, which we judged to require decompression of intestine by insertion of a decompression tube.
[Result]
Postoperative SBO after LAC developed in 11 cases (5%), of which seven and four cases were colon and rectal cancer, respectively. In the colon cancer cases, SBO developed during hospitalization in four cases and after discharge in three cases. In the rectal cancer cases, SBO developed during hospitalization in one case, after discharge in two cases, and in one case developed in both time periods. We performed adhesiolysis in four cases after conservative therapy was not effective. In three of these cases, SBO developed very early after LAC.
[Conclusion]
Although resumption of bowel activity was thought to be early after LAC, SBO due to adhesion had developed during what was thought to be satisfactory postoperative progress. It was not necessarily rare that SBO developed in the early postoperative days after LAC required adhesiolysis.
