Prospective analysis of indications and early complications of emergency temporary loop ileostomies for perforation peritonitis

Introduction

Ileostomy, a frequently performed surgical procedure, is an external communication constructed between the distal part of the small intestine and the abdominal wall. The rationale for a temporary loop ileostomy is to provide defunctioning in case of potentially dangerous anastomotic complications with an obvious risk for mortality. Fecal diversion through a temporary stoma can reduce the effects of anstomotic leak and also the rate of leak-related interventions [1-4]. The thought of stoma, whether permanent or temporary, is frightful and anxiety provoking. It is important to relieve the patient’s fear about living with a stoma by proper counseling and providing literature on their disease and the proposed surgery is often helpful.

Although formation of defunctioning loop ileostomy is usually a straightforward and a life-saving procedure, there is an appreciable complication rate [5,6]. Most of the complications seen after temporary loop ileostomy are due to severe sepsis, advanced pathology and relative inexperience of the residents in an emergency situation. It is convenient to prevent complication by means of an adequate surgical technique and a better rehabilitation by a multidisciplinary team. Complications related to stoma may occur early or late, intermittently or progressively and may be acute or chronic in nature.

Ileostomy is a life-saving procedure, particularly in those cases where there is fulminant enteritis and peritonitis of long duration. Despite the major advancement in the field of surgery, construction of intestinal stoma is still a common and frequently performed procedure. It is mandatory to apply meticulously sound surgical principals in order to achieve good results, and it should be performed by a surgeon not only technically skilled but who also understands the potential metabolic and mechanical problems associated with the loop ileostomy. So, a judicious assessment for the need of stoma, careful surgical technique and skilled enterostomal nursing are essential for a satisfactory outcome. The management of a patient with stoma must begin before the surgery, and the key to management of surgical complications is prevention.

The purpose of the present study was to assess the indications and stomal, peristomal and other systemic complications in terms of incidence, rate and their nature during the first 8 weeks after creation as most of the psychological, metabolic and mechanical complications occur during this period.

Patients and methods

Results

There were 406 male and 224 female patients. Their mean age was 34 (range 14-72) years. Their presenting complaints were fever, loss of appetite, vomiting, pain abdomen, and 42 patients presented in shock. All the patients were found to have total leukocyte count >18,000/mm3. RFTs were deranged in 512 patients, and 42 patients who presented in emergency with shock were found to have severely deranged RFTs (Table 1).

Table 1

Patient characteristics

On exploration, there was a severe degree of contamination in 356 patients. Of these 356 patients, 68 needed ICU care, 6 developed pleural effusion, and 12 patients had complete wound dehiscence. 56 patients received higher antibiotics other than ceftriaxone. 7 patients died within 15 days of surgery.

Typhoid perforation (n=402) was the most common pathology, followed by tuberculosis (n=106); trauma (n=81); and intestinal obstruction with gangrenous bowel (n=41) (Table 2). 299 patients had no stoma related complications. Skin excoriation was the most common stoma-related complication (Table 3). 42 patients developed retraction of stoma, of which 10 needed revision under general anesthesia. In the majority of cases (n=568) the perforation site was brought out as stoma (Table 4). Stoma-related complications were more numerous with typhoid perforations (262/402) as compared to those with non-typhoid perforations (69/228). Fecopurulent fluid was present in all the cases of typhoid perforations. Age more than 50 (P=0.002), delay in presentation (0.001), delay in surgery (0.001), presence of comorbidities (0.002) and shock at presentation (0.001), surgery done out of working hours (0.009) are the factors associated with increased rate of stomal and other systemic complications (Table 5).

Table 2

Indications of emergency temporary loop ileostomies

Table 3

Complications (morbidity) of emergency temporary loop ileostomies

Table 4

Type of surgery and stoma for perforation

Table 5

Comparisons of epidemiological variables

Twenty three patients underwent resurgery for indications other than stoma-related complications. In nineteen patients with typhoid perforation, there was bile in the drain for which they were re-explored and found to have fresh perforations proximal to the ileostomy site. In such cases the affected part was resected and ileostomy was made again. Two of these patients developed more perforations and were explored. Four patients probably had iatrogenic perforation for which they needed resurgery.

Interestingly, most of the patients showed an increase in BMI, and decreased BMI was seen only in few patients. 7 patients who died had a BMI of <16.5 at the time of admission (Table 6).

Table 6

Body mass index (BMI) at admission, on post-operative day 2 (POD2), 4 and 8 weeks after surgery

Discussion

The first surgical stoma was created more than 200 years ago. The earliest stomas were actually unintentional ones, enterocutaneous fistulas resulting from penetrating abdominal injuries or complications of intestinal diseases such as incarcerated hernias [7]. In developing countries, including India, intestinal perforation resulting from typhoid fever and tuberculosis has always been a concern because of their high morbidity and mortality rates [8-10]. In these cases, most perforations occur in the terminal ileum.

Unlike the west typhoid is still a common cause of perforation in our country, followed by tuberculosis, being common diseases of India [11,12]. The most common indication in our study was typhoid enteric perforation accounting for 63.8% of ileostomies while tuberculosis accounted for 17% of ileostomies. Typhoid fever is endemic in India with the prevalence rate of 88 cases/lac population and death rate 0.029/lac population for the year 2011 [13]. Delayed presentation, marked sepsis, and poor nutritional status were the common factors in these patients with perforation peritonitis, so preference was given to temporary loop ileostomy over primary closure or resection of the diseased segment and anastomosis. Loop ileostomy does not provide complete defunctioning but it decreases the incidence and severity of sepsis following a leak from the anastomosis or primary closure site. Loop ileostomy is considered generally easier to manage and is not associated with a greater rate of complications than loop colostomy.

A loop ileostomy has an adverse effect on quality of life, which gets further enhanced if stoma related complications occur [14-16]. Complication rate of temporary loop ileostomy ranges between 5-100%. These rates vary due to varying length of follow up [7,17,18]. Delayed presentation, age of the patient, urgency of surgery, degree of contamination, diagnosis at the time of presentation, availability of expertise, and presence of shock at admission are the factors associated with a high level of morbidity. Peritonitis had an adverse effect on the morbidity hence pre-operative resuscitation, judicious use of antibiotics and acid base imbalance correction plays an important role in preventing future morbidity of the patients. Complication rates between 20 and 60 percent were also reported [19] and this difference may be related with different time points. In our study, the complication rate was 52.5%. These complications were prolapse of the loop ileostomy, high output fluid loss, retraction of the stoma, transient edema of the stoma which may be associated with obstructive symptoms, peristomal dermatitis, and local wound abscesses. A higher complication rate was seen in patients with typhoid fever and tuberculosis, and in those who presented in shock at emergency. The majority of these complications were treated conservatively. A complication rate of 41% associated with loop ileostomy construction, with 6% of patients requiring surgical intervention has been reported in one study [2] while another had a complication rate of 25% and all required surgical intervention [20].

There area number of factors which predispose to stoma related complications; high body mass or body habitus, systemic diseases like typhoid fever and tuberculosis, inflammatory bowel disease, use of steroids and immuno suppressants, diabetes mellitus, old age, emergency surgery, surgical technique, and surgeon’s experience. All the surgeries, in the present study were done by trainee surgeons in emergency. Also, there is no enterostomal therapist in our institute for counseling and care, so this was also done by resident surgeons. Surgeon and surgery-related factors play a major role in prevention of stoma related complications. Although all of these stomas were made by resident surgeons with at least 3 years of experience, if they had been done by a specialist surgeon results would have been different. Even more than the experience, what matters is the work load and timing of surgery, whether they were done during working hours or out of working hours. Almost one-third of the surgeries were performed out of working hours. Supervision of a specialist surgeon was sought for the majority of surgeries performed during working hours but those surgeries done out of working hours were unsupervised.

Skin excoriation was found to be the major complication in this study. The usual incidence of peristomal skin problems is 10-14% [11,12], and the probable cause may be improper siting, high or low BMI, and postoperative care. In emergency situations, it is often not possible to mark the stoma site in standing and sitting position as the patients who present late are usually in shock at the time of presentation. In such cases, it is difficult to judge the skin folds and waist line in patients with high BMI. In our study, the problems of skin excoriation and retraction were seen mostly in patients with a high BMI. The probable reasons for skin excoriation and retraction in patients with high? BMI are a thickened fatty mesentery making mobilization of the bowel loop more difficult and traction is exerted on the bowel wall. On the other hand, in patients who have thin build and poor nutritional status, bony prominences pose a problem in proper placement of stoma appliances and result in frequent leakage and skin excoriation.

Skin excoriation was also seen in patients with abdominal tuberculosis due to generalized muscle wasting and weight loss which is a feature of this disease process. Patients with abdominal tuberculosis had very prominent bony prominences due to the significant weight loss before surgery, so it became difficult to apply stoma appliances properly in these patients which resulted in frequent leakage of bag and spillage of relatively watery effluent from the bag. After initiation of standard antituberculous treatment and high protein diet, BMI improved in these patients and peristomal skin complications were also decreased.

Stoma prolapse was seen in 4 patients in this study during the 3rd and 4th post-operative week. Stoma prolapse causes distress and looks alarming and unsightly. This can be managed by manual reduction, local resection and reformation of the stoma or revision by abdominal approach for incarcerated or strangulated prolapse. None of our patients required surgical intervention for stomal prolapse. Retraction or prolapse of stoma and transient stomal ischemia are usual sequela of an improper surgical technique.

Many patients with loop ileostomy are known to have episodes with excessive fluid loss through the stoma. In some of these patients, the losses over several days can severely derange water and electrolyte balance. During the first few post-operative days, fluid and electrolyte imbalance is the main problem, which needs great care and this was found in 12.6% of our patients, needing fluid and electrolytes. 3.4% of our patients needed aggressive fluid and electrolyte management. For unknown reasons, this complication was seen more commonly in cases with typhoid perforation.

At the time of admission, only 147 patients had normal BMI while after 8 weeks 379 patients were in the normal range. This indicates that there was significant weight gain, hence improvement in BMI of patients at the end of the study. Apart from the role of improved diet and resolution of pathology, regular counseling played an important role in improvement.

In conclusion, temporary loop ileostomy for perforation peritonitis due to benign systemic diseases such as typhoid fever and tuberculosis confers a very high morbidity. Peritonitis patients develop more stomal and systemic complications if they present late and also if surgery is delayed. Presence of shock at presentation and association of comorbidities are also associated with increased rate of complications. Ileostomy had a positive effect on the BMI of severely debilitated patients with perforation peritonitis, although not a direct effect. Most of the patients cope well with adjustments required after creation of temporary loop ileostomy because of psychological support provided by clinicians and reassurance about stoma closure within a few weeks.