Perioperative lavage promotes intraperitoneal adhesion in the rat

This study was designed to study the effect of peritoneal ravage solutions on postsurgical adhesion formation in rats undergoing laparotomy and standa rdized ischemic injury to the lateral peritoneum with sutures. This reprodu cible model enabled semiquantitative scoring of adhesion formation. Adhesio ns were induced in 33 adult female Wistar rats. The solutions RPMI medium, NaCl (0.9%), Viaspan(R) and both povidone-iodine (1%) and chlorhexidine (0. 02%) in dilution were evaluated. In the control group that was operated upo n (without peritoneal lavage), a mean adhesion percentage of 22.5% was scor ed. All solutions used for abdominal lavage in this rat model induced signi ficantly (p = 0.0001) more adhesions (40.6-70.8%). Not all solutions induce d an equal effect. The results found in the present in vivo study correlate with observations in previous in vitro experiments i.e. exposure of perito neal areas to lavage solutions enhances peritoneal activation and thus prom otes intra-abdominal adhesion formation.