Small bowel obstruction in the elderly.

Hospital records were reviewed for all patients 70 years or older who were treated for small bowel obstruction (SBO) at The New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center from January 1975 through December 1980. There were 87 patients treated surgically and 20 patients treated nonoperatively. When the clinical evidence of strangulation was evaluated for preoperative reliability, 35 per cent of the patients had none of the accepted criteria for strangulation. Complications occurred in 60.9 per cent of patients following operative intervention. Wound infection was the most common postoperative complication and was related to wound management and to the number of enterotomies made at the time of surgery. Using delayed 1 degree closure, the infection rate was 6.2 per cent compared to 21.1 per cent when wounds were closed at surgery. The overall operative mortality was 18 per cent; advanced carcinoma accounted for 60 per cent of these fatalities. The mortality for patients with nonmalignant obstruction was 10.0 per cent as compared with 40.7 per cent in patients with cancer. From these data the authors conclude: that age alone should not be a deterrent to operative intervention in small bowel obstruction; the presence of a 1 degree or 2 degrees malignant process in the elderly patient is a significant risk factor for mortality; any patient operated on for SBO having an enterotomy should have their wound managed by delayed 1 degree closure; and because of the lack of reliability of the clinical criteria for strangulation, operative intervention in the elderly should be undertaken as soon as the diagnosis of mechanical obstruction is made.