Defunctioning colostomy for perianal sepsis in acute leukaemia.

: Perianal sepsis in patients with acute leukaemia is a life threatening complication which carries an extremely poor prognosis. The usual approach to this problem is simple incision and parenteral antibiotics but we have recently treated two patients with wide excision combined with a defunctioning colostomy which resulted in rapid and complete eradication of sepsis.