Treatment of penetrating duodenal injuries: primary repair vs. repair with decompressive enterostomy/serosal patch.

We analyzed 60 patients with penetrating duodenal injuries (1972-1983) treated by two operative techniques: primary repair or anastomosis after debridement, and repair with decompressive enterostomy with or without serosal patch of jejunum. The two treatment groups were comparable in terms of severity of duodenal and associated injuries and clinical status of the patients. Morbidity was significantly higher (p less than 0.001) in the enterostomy/patch group and mortality was limited to that group. Our data suggest that debridement and primary repair of duodenal wounds is the treatment of choice and that the addition of decompressive enterostomy and/or serosal patch does not improve results and may contribute to morbidity and mortality.