Journal of Visceral Surgery最新文献

Lumbar hernia is a rare disease, which can be acquired spontaneously or secondarily (post-traumatically, postoperatively…) or congenitally. It results from the existence of areas of weakness between the different muscles forming the posterior abdominal wall: the deep-seated Grynfeltt triangle and the superficial Jean-Louis Petit triangle.

Meckel's diverticulum is the most common congenital anomaly of the gastrointestinal tract (Lequet et al., 2017). It results from incomplete obliteration of the vitelline (omphaloenteric) duct. Observed diverticulum complications include inflammation and perforation, hemorrhage and obstruction (Kawamoto et al., 2015). We are reporting on a case of Meckel's diverticulum revealed by acute intestinal obstruction.

Study objective

To evaluate the feasibility and benefit of a diagnostic and therapeutic algorithm for management of patients presenting with a high C-reactive protein (CRP) level after colorectal surgery.

Patients and methods

Prospective study including patients with CRP > 125 mg/L at the 4th postoperative day following elective colorectal surgery. The protocol involved CT-scan of which the results were to orient subsequent management: antibiotics, radiological drainage, endoscopy or surgical redo. Success (primary endpoint) consisted in the proportion of patients with total duration of hospitalization fewer than 15 d. Secondary endpoints were: applicability of the protocol in real-life conditions, number of stomas created, duration of hospitalization in an intensive care unit.

Results

One hundred and six (106) patients were included: 51 patients (48%) presented with postoperative complications, of which 21 (41%) were severe. No death occurred. Among the included patients, 68% had a hospital stay < 15 d. Major deviations from the management algorithm occurred in 38% of cases. No patients had an early endoscopy. There was no significant difference with regard to the secondary endpoints according to whether or not the protocol was strictly observed.

Conclusion

It is necessary to define a protocol for management of patients presenting with high CRP levels after colorectal surgery, the objective being to reduce the impact of complications and to avoid excessive lengthening of hospital stay. The protocol begins with CT-scan, which is to orient subsequent management.

Background

With steep posterior anorectal angulation, transanal total mesorectal excision (taTME) may have a risk of dissection in the wrong plane or starting higher up, resulting in leaving distal mesorectum behind. Although the distal mesorectal margin can be assessed by preoperative MRI, it needs skilled radiologist and high-definition image for accurate evaluation. This study developed a deep neural network (DNN) to predict the optimal level of distal mesorectal margin.

Methods

A total of 182 pelvic MRI images extracted from the cancer image archive (TCIA) database were included. A DNN was developed using gender, the degree of anterior and posterior anorectal angles as input variables while the difference between anterior and posterior mesorectal distances from anal verge was selected as a target. The predictability power was assessed by regression values (R) which is the correlation between the predicted outputs and actual targets.

Results

The anterior angle was an obtuse angle while the posterior angle varied from acute to obtuse with mean angle difference 35.5° ± 14.6. The mean difference between the anterior and posterior mesorectal end distances was 18.6 ± 6.6 mm. The developed DNN had a very close correlation with the target during training, validation, and testing (R = 0.99, 0.81, and 0.89, P < 0.001). The predicted level of distal mesorectal margin was closely correlated with the actual optimal level (R = 0.91, P < 0.001).

Conclusions

Artificial intelligence can assist in either making or confirming the preoperative decisions. Furthermore, the developed model can alert the surgeons for this potential risk and the necessity of re-positioning the proctectomy incision.