Adult primary gastric volvulus, a report of two cases

Gastric volvulus is the medical situation that a stomach is twisted beyond the physiological range. It is a rare disease which is hard to experience in routine medical examination. Principally surgical treatment is essential for the acute type. However, the conservative therapy should be attempted in some cases, such as decompression of a stomach with a nasogastric tube, endoscopic reduction and so forth. Concerning surgical operation, the base is reduction of the torsion and immobilization of stomach. Recently, laparoscopic surgery is performed for the case that the general condition is stable or chronically progressive in the early stages. Percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) had also been performed for gastric immobilization. However, the recurrences and problems of twisting around the gastrostomy site were reported in addition to the problem of cosmetic outcomes. Therefore, the case is decreasing. In this paper, we present two cases on adult primary gastric volvulus. For the first case, endoscopic reduction was not good enough to release the torsion state. Then laparoscopic gastropexy was performed successfully. For the second case, we succeeded in endoscopic reduction. Since the patient had already experienced gastric volvulus, laparoscopic surgery was performed. The upper and middle gastric bodies were secured to the anterior abdominal wall, and gastric antrum to the ligamentum teres hepatis with interrupted absorbable sutures respectively. However, partial gastric volvulus recurred after ten and a several days postoperatively due to cutting off of the suture at the antrum secured to the ligamentum teres hepatis at previous surgery. Then, PEG for 2 points of lower body and antrum were performed to secure the antrum. The gastrostomies were removed 6 months after the surgery. Immobilization by laparoscopic gastropexy and PEG are useful for gastric volvulus due to their significant merit of minimum invasiveness. Concerning gastropexy, the number of sutures is very important for the secured part not to be torn off.