Anatomical and physiological basis of parietal treatment of severe peritonitis and evisceration.

The failures observed in attempts to obtain abdominal closure "at all costs" and the risks and difficulties of laparostomy led us to develop a technique of exclusive cutaneous cover to treat cases of severe peritonitis and evisceration with or without exposed fistula. This method is based on certain anatomical features of the anterolateral abdominal wall and its physiological properties when eventration or evisceration is present. The forces of parietal dehiscence were determined in 6 patients having undergone major surgery of the digestive tract. The magnitude of these forces, the neccessity of obtaining biological protection and the structure and physiology of the superficial layers of the abdominal wall require a cutaneous cover with traction-free sutures via cutaneoaponeurotic incisions of relaxation. The rich vascularization of the abdominal wall, the number and topography of the perforating arteries and the existence of hypodermal, subdermal and subpapillary anastomoses allow the surgeon to perform extensive cutaneoaponeurotic mobilization.