Surgical strategies in severe abdominal infections

Initial treatment of peritonitis is largely standardised (elimination source of infection, debridement and intraoperative lavage) but a major problem is the management policy of patients who are at high risk of further infective complications after the initial operation. Existing prognostic scores based on physiological variables, age and chronic disease (APACHE II), and scores that include intraoperative information about the infection (MPI) unfortunately do not seem to be useful in identifying these patients. Management of severe intra-abdominal infections is founded on three main principles: 1) supportive care of patient, 2 timely and appropriate antimicrobial therapy and 3) an operative treatment to aim at control the source of infection (evacuate pus, treat abdominal compartment syndrome) and prevent or treat persistant and recurrent infections. In the patients with severe intrabdominal infection there is a great variance in surgical strategies but four may be distingued: continous postoperative peritoneal lavage, relaparotomy on demand ("wait and see" policy), open drainage (laparostomy) and planned relaparotomy. The continous postoperative peritoneal lavage and relaparotomy on demand do not seem to prevent residual o recurrent intrabdominal infections and are associated with a high mortality. The planned relaparotomy seem to decrease the rate of residual peritoneal infection but has a high complication rate. It may be concluded that the ideal operative approach for patients with severe intra-abdominal infection has not been established yet. However, these techniques to be beneficial must be performed in well-selected patients and performed by a team of dedicated surgeons.