[Primary healing of the sacral cavity after proctectomy - a solvable surgical problem (author's transl)]

Primary healing of the perineal wound and the sacral cavity after a.p. resection of the rectum is an old surgical problem. In order to achieve primary healing we are using a lengthened omental graft to fill up the sacral space. Since January 1977 to July 1977 we used this method in 17 patients. 15 patients had very low rectal cancers. 2 patients had to undergo proctocolectomy because of ulcerative colitis. In 14 cases we achieved primary healing, among these the colitis patients. Overall we had three abscess formations in the sacral cavity. One of these patients got in addition an obstruction postoperatively.