EFFICACY OF MECHANICAL BOWEL PREPARATION FOR ELECTIVE COLORECTAL SURGERY

Objective: To compare the postoperative infective complications like wound infections and anastomotic leakage, of mechanical bowel preparation with non-mechanical bowel preparation in patients undergoing elective colorectal surgeries. Study Design: Comparative - cross sectional study. Place and Duration of Study: We conducted our study in surgical department of Surgery, Pak Emirates Military Hospital and Combined Military Hospital Rawalpindi, from Feb 2015 to Aug 2015. Methodology: One hundreds and sixty patients were included in this study, which were further divided into groups A and B of 80 patients in each group. Group A was subjected to mechanical bowel preparation before surgery and group B was subjected to non-mechanical bowel preparation. Results: Our study showed that anastomotic leakage was seen in 11 patients (13.8%) of group A and 14 patients (17.5%) in-group B. While surgical site infection was developed in 8 patients (10.0%) in-group A and 12 patients (15.0%) of group B. There was no statistically significant difference between two groups. Conclusion: We concluded in our study that infective complications like sepsis, due to anastomosis leakage after elective colorectal surgery were not severe in patients without bowel preparation done before operation, when compared to patients with bowel cleaning