SURGICAL-MANAGEMENT OF PATIENTS WITH RADIATION ENTERITIS

To improve the surgical outcome in patients with radiation enteritis, 18 female cases were analyzed, Out of the 18 cases, 3 (16.7%) were tre ated conservatively while 15 (83.3%) underwent surgical procedures. Th irteen out of 14 patients (92.8%) with ileus underwent an operation, T he overall mortality was 22.2% (4 out of 18 cases), However, no signif icant difference in the mortality between the operated and non-operate d cases was observed, Although an analysis of the 15 operated cases di d not reveal any significant factors that might have affected the prog nosis, all four patients who underwent a bypass operation showed a goo d postoperative course, with only one exception being a patient suffer ing from malnutrition, Although only a small number of patients were i ncluded in this study, these results suggest that 1) surgeons should n ot hesitate to operate on patients with radiation enteritis demonstrat ing ileus, and 2) a bypass operation may be one surgical alternative i n the presence of massive adhesion or for patients at high risk for a standard operation.