Preoperative bowel preparation/Author's reply

Besides substantially reduced patient comfort, this invasive procedure has been shown to cause severe side-effects such as electrolyte or acid-base imbalances and dehydration.3 The corresponding liberal fluid infusion, usually done to reestablish the reduced intravascular volume, intensifies these d...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Lancet (British edition) 2008-05, Vol.371 (9625), p.1661
Main Authors: Chappell, Daniel, Rehm, Markus, Jacob, Matthias, Platell, Cameron
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Clinical trials
Colorectal surgery
Dehydration
Hospitals
Mortality
Wound healing
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Besides substantially reduced patient comfort, this invasive procedure has been shown to cause severe side-effects such as electrolyte or acid-base imbalances and dehydration.3 The corresponding liberal fluid infusion, usually done to reestablish the reduced intravascular volume, intensifies these disturbances and causes tissue oedema.'1 This problem prolongs wound healing and bowel function recovery time and increases reintervention rate, hospital stay, mortality, and the incidence of severe cardiopulmonary complications.5 There are several good reasons to question the necessity of preoperative bowel preparation. Hopefully the intriguing work of Contant and colleagues will help to extend the worldwide discussion on preoperative bowel preparation beyond abscess rates or the stability of enterai anastomoses, to achieve a real improvement in patients' outcomes. Daniel Chapped and colleagues argue that mechanical bowel preparation "prolongs wound healing and bowel function recovery time and increases re intervention rate, hospital stay, mortality, and the incidence of severe cardiopulmonary complications".
ISSN:0140-6736
1474-547X