Abstract
During the past 7 years, 91 cases of mechanical small bowel obstruction (SBO) have been operated on, in which particular cases such as incarcerated hernia, malignancies, as well as early postoperative adhesive SBO were excluded. They were divided into 3 groups, according to the length of palliative therapy and the timing of operation after admission, i.e., group I: operation within 24 hours after admission (38 cases), group II: within 3 days (20), and group III: beyond 3 days (33), in order to analyses the surgical outcomes. There were no differences in background factors between group I and group II, however, most cases in group III developed the disease within 10 years after previous operation, a third part of which were suffering from repeatedly recurred SBO. Intestinal strangulation was found in 61% (23 cases) of group I, 50% (10) of group II, and 30% (10) of group III. Although mortality (overall, 3.3%) was not statistically different among 3 groups, morbidity in group III (46%) was significantly high compared to other groups. Moreover, hospital stay was significantly prolonged in intestinal strangulation in group III. These results indicate that procrastination will afford little merits and thus the early operation is highly recommended whenever SBO is diagnosed.
