[Technical failures in small bowel surgery (author's transl)].

Abstract

A certain amount of relaparotomies after small bowel surgery is caused by technical failures, such as the technique of suturing the anastomosis and the kind of re-establishing the continuity of the bowel. An end-to-end-anastomosis with sufficient vascularisation at the cut ends, tension free, and without an overdone inversion will guarantee a more successful suturing of the bowel than a side-to-side-anastomosis. At first the whole small bowel should be explored to recognize multiple lesions. Postoperative malabsorption due to the exclusion of more less extended segments of the bowel--by bypass anastomoses or construction of blind loops--can be repaired successfully by corrective laparotomies. Special problems in operative tactics and technique of Crohn's disease are discussed.