Damage Control for Severe Duodenal and Combined Duodenal-Pancreatic Injuries: A Retrospective Review

The management of significant duodenal injuries and combined duodenal-pancreatic injuries continues to be challenging and controversial. Several techniques have been advocated over the years to prevent the dreaded complications of repair breakdown, fistulization, and intra-abdominal sepsis. These include duodenal diverticulization, triple tube ostomy, tube duodenostomy, and pyloric exclusion. These techniques are all designed to decompress, heal without undue intraluminal pressure or flow. Recently, surgeons have questioned whether aggressive adjunctive diversion is truly necessary, especially for less severe injuries, and many have noted complications associated with the reconstructions apart from the injury.

An alternative to routine diversion/decompression/exclusion is the damage control/planned reoperation strategies following laparotomy for severe visceral injuries that have become prevalent in the past two decades. Instead of performing a primary duodenal repair with enteral diversion or decompression in a single operation, many surgeons employ a surveillance and "touch-up" strategy over the course of 2-4 abdominal explorations. The abdominal fascia is not closed until the healing phase has commenced and the surgeon feels confident the repair will hold.

At the trauma center, the advent of damage control and other planned re-operation strategies as resulted in an evolution in our management of duodenal lacerations and combined duodenal-pancreatic injuries. The investigators perform noticeably fewer decompression, diversion, or exclusion procedures and have increasingly relied on serial abdominal explorations for surveillance of the repair.

In this retrospective review, we intend to quantify our change in practice and to report its outcome compared to previous practice.

Using the OHSU Trauma Laparotomy Outcomes Database, we will identify all patients receiving trauma laparotomy in which a duodenal or combined duodenal-pancreatic injury was identified in a 20-year period from 1989-2009. The medical records of these patients will be reviewed to confirm duodenal injury and to tabulate other factors.