Subtotal colectomy with antiperistaltic cecoproctostomy for slow-transit constipation: concerning the paper: Jiang CQ, Qian Q, Liu ZS, Bangoura G, Zheng KY, Wu YH (2008) Subtotal colectomy with antiperistaltic cecoproctostomy for selected patients with slow-transit constipation-from Chinese report. Int J Colorectal Dis 23:1251-1256.

摘要

We found the article from Dr. Jiang et al. concerning their experience with antiperistaltic cecoproctostomy after subtotal colectomy (the so-called Sarli procedure) for slow-transit constipation, published in the December issue of Int J Colorectal Dis to be of great interest. In recent years, this procedure has been proposed as an alternative to total colectomy and ileo-rectal anastomosis (TC-IRA) as the treatment of colonic inertia, with varying results.Dr. Jiang et al. report the results of this procedure in 17 patients and compare them to those achieved in 20 patients undergoing TC-IRA, concluding that the former seems to be superior, affording the patients a better quality of life. Although the inevitable bias associated with the retrospective nature of the study, the (small) size of the sample and the (short) length of follow-up do not allow for definitive conclusions, we congratulate the authors for their preliminary results, which match those we achieved in our series [1]. Nevertheless, we believe that readers should benefit from some clarification concerning both patient selection and surgical technique, since often it is the details that determine the results of a surgical procedure.