[Acute post-operative peritonitis in gastro-enterological surgery. Opinion of the intensive care unit (author's transl)].

Acute purulent post-operative peritonitis is highly severe and difficult to diagnose. Six symptoms have a real prognostic value: shock, acute renal insufficiency, respiratory failure, jaundice, acidosis and septicaemia. If more than three of these signs of severity coexist, the mortality rate reaches nearly 100%. A patient with evidence of acute diffuse post-operative peritonitis must be operated on after a short preoperative treatment to restore a situation altered by shock, renal failure and pulmonary edema. Antibiotic agent alone, though necessary, cannot bring recovery. The maintenance of high nutritional intake for excess caloric expenditure is essential. The effects of the early decision of a surgical reintervention are studied in 27 patients with only two recoveries.