Surgical and Therapeutic Interventions for Chronic Intestinal Pseudo-obstruction: A Scoping Review

Chronic intestinal pseudo-obstruction (CIPO) is a rare cause of intestinal dysmotility. First-line treatment in adult patients is medical and nutritional therapy. For patients who fail these treatment options, surgical interventions may be an option. In this scoping review, we aim to investigate the current research on surgical interventions for CIPO in adults.

PubMed, Embase, and Scopus were queried for articles related to surgical interventions for adults with CIPO. Search terms included: intestinal dysmotility, intestinal pseudo-obstruction, global intestinal dysmotility, chronic intestinal pseudo-obstruction, gastrointestinal paresis, neurogastrointestinal motility disorder, and chronic small intestinal motility disorder.

Initial search identified 4763 records; 4722 were deemed irrelevant after screening and were excluded. The remaining 41 reports were retrieved and assessed for eligibility. Twenty-one additional studies were excluded after in-depth assessment. The remaining 20 reports were: 9 cohort studies, 7 case reports, and 4 reviews. Of these, 10 studies had study populations of < 10 patients, while 6 had ≥ 10 patients. The remaining 4 were reviews. Results of these papers described the safety and effectiveness of various surgical interventions for adults with CIPO, including percutaneous endoscopic procedures, surgical decompression, small bowel resection, and intestinal transplantation.

Data pertaining to surgical therapy for CIPO is limited. Although this review suggests that surgical interventions for CIPO may be safe and effective for select patients, strong conclusions cannot be made due to limited number of relevant studies and small sample sizes. Concerted efforts to produce data from large studies on adults with CIPO are necessary.