The use of pyloric exclusion in the management of severe duodenal injuries.

Repair of severe duodenal injuries often constitutes a technical challenge, and a variety of special technics have been described. For the past seven years we have utilized temporary pyloric exclusion and gastrojejunostomy to produce "diverticulization" of the duodenum. This procedure was utilized in seventy-five patients selected from 175 consecutive patients presenting with duodenal trauma. The mortality was 19 per cent and the rate of fistula formation was 5 per cent in this series and 14 per cent and 2 per cent, respectively, in the overall series. Follow-up studies of gastric physiology and functional anatomy show no evidence of alteration of these parameters. We thus believe that patients presenting with severe duodenal trauma and often multiple devastating associated organ injuries can be adequately treated with this procedure with a significant decrease in mortality and with marked improvement of postoperative morbidity.