Management of penetrating colon injuries

The management of colon injuries remains an area of major controversy. Selecting the patients who can undergo primary repair safely remains undefined. To address this issue, 231 consecutive patients with penetrating colon injuries were reviewed to determine those factors that affected outcome. Overall, there were 54 (25.2%) septic complications, with 36 (16.8%) wound infections and 18 (8.4%) intra-abdominal abscesses. There were seven (3.3%) deaths in the entire series. The surgical management method of the colon injury was not significant in wound infections (P > .39), intra-abdominal abscesses (P > .24), or mortality (P > .39). A more aggressive approach of primary repair should be performed for civilian colon injuries.