Assesment of Quality of Life and Digestive and Genitourinary Functional Sequelae After Elective Left Colectomy for Sigmoid Diverticulitis. National Multicenter Prospective Observational Study

Acute diverticulitis of the left colon is among the most common abdominal disorders. To date, both conservative therapy in uncomplicated stages and emergency surgery in perforated disease with peritonitis are consensual. The best treatment strategy for other situations (i.e., smoldering, healed abscesses, recurrences) is still under debate. On the other hand, the best treatment strategy for complicated disease as well as for recurrent stages is still under debate. In these cases, elective surgery can be proposed on a case-by-case basis. Current French guideline recommendations have been updated in 2017. In theory, the objective of elective surgical treatment is to prevent the recurrence and/or complication of the diverticulitis, that might lead to the creation of a stoma. In France, nearly 12,000 prophylactic colectomies for diverticulitis are performed per year. Importantly, elective surgical treatment is associated with the relevant intrinsic morbidity (9.6% major complications within the Sigma Trial), the potential need for unplanned stoma formation of 1%-14% and a significant risk of persisting postoperative complaints. Up to 25% of patients who have undergone a scheduled sigmoid colectomy suffer from ongoing abdominal symptoms. Levack et al found the risk of faecal incontinence to be 24.8% after a sigmoidectomy. Moreover, faecal urgency occurred in 19.6% of patients, and incompleteness of emptying occurred in 20.8%., altering their quality of life (QOL).

To out knowledge, few data are available in the literature concerning the evaluation of QOL after elective sigmoid colectomy. Although QOL was significantly improved after surgery compared to conservative medical treatment, these results were questionable due to the heterogeneity of the studies and the lack of direct comparison of the two therapeutic approaches. Only one recent randomized study reported similar results but this one was prematurely stopped due to inclusion difficulties. The evaluation of digestive and genitourinary functional sequelae is based only on short series, most often retrospective. In summary, evidence on disease-specific characteristics influencing postoperative quality of life is lacking.

The aim of this prospective multicenter study is : (i) to evaluate the QOL and functional sequelae at 6 and 12 months in patients operated on for elective left colectomy and, (ii) to compare them to a population of non-operating diverticulitis patients.