Free Peritoneal Graft for Repair of Severe Seromuscular Defect of Bowel: From Experiment to Clinical Practice

Abstract

Severe seromuscular tear of the bowel with impending perforation following enterolysis or trauma is not uncommon in gastrointestinal surgery. It is sometimes complicated with enterocutaneous fistula, intra-abdominal abscess or free perforation, especially of the ileus. In addition, direct serosal repair is often impossible, or complicated by lumen compromise. Serosal patch repair also reportedly is also associated with complications such as dislodgement of the sutured bowel loop, fistula formation, adhesion ileus, or volvulus. Free peritoneal graft (FPG), as in split-thickness skin graft (STSG), can be taken by underlying healthy tissue within 24 to 48 h and used for repair of such defect. In this study, FPG was used as an alternative to serosal patch repair or resection to cover severe defects of the colon, rectum, duodenum, or small bowel in 30 consecutive patients. All defects were over 8 x 4 cm in size and involved 30 to 80% of the circumference of the bowel wall. Each defect was deep enough to expose the thin mucosal layer, with the intestinal content visible through it. These defects could have been successfully treated by resection or repair using a serosal or mucosal patch instead of FPG. After making sure that the mucosa associated with the defect was alive and not perforated, a patch of intact peritoneum with pre-peritoneal tissue from the lateral abdominal wall (slightly smaller than the defect) was superimposed, with the edges simply sewn to the margin of the defect. All patients recovered uneventfully, with no untoward effects determined, even after long-term follow-up. We believe that FPG provides a feasible, simple, effective, economic, and safe alternative for repair of severe seromuscular defects; potentially making it widely applicable in clinical practice.