[Abandoned, effective and current aspects of surgical small bowel ileus therapy]

Because of the marked heterogeneity of patient groups and the diverse causes of obstruction, surgical therapy of the small-bowel ileus is difficult to standardize. A homogeneous strategy of intraoperative handling of the obstructed bowel (decompression, endoluminal splinting) as well as abdominal closure would be desirable. Adhesiolysis remains the most common procedure. Small bowel plication is still used by a minority of surgeons with the Noble's technique replaced by the Child-Phillips' technique and its modifications. However, as a result of the lack of controlled studies, there is no large body of evidence available to support the use of plication, long tubes or any other specific surgical intervention. This is an important task for the future, especially in view of incidence and economic importance of small bowel-ileus.