[Is cecostomy still current for emergency relief of the colon?]

The policy of treatment in patients with acute obstruction of the left colon remains controversial. One-stage emergency colectomy and primary anastomosis is usually recommended. Is a multiple-stage approach with primary blowhole cecostomy still a valuable solution? This retrospective analysis of 117 patients with emergency cecostomies shows an overall perioperative mortality and morbidity which are favourable compared with those reported in series of similar cases treated by one-stage procedures. In all patients the colon obstruction was treated effectively by the cecostomy. Only two of the stoma-related complications required operative intervention. The second operation was performed after a mean interval of 12 days. The low perioperative mortality of 2.1% shows, that the time was successfully used to optimize the perioperative conditions. It is concluded that patients with a very poor risk may profit by preliminary decompression by blowhole cecostomy.