CT fluoroscopy-guided drain placement to treat infected gastric leakage after sleeve gastrectomy : technical and clinical outcome of 31 procedures

Abstract

Purpose: To observe the technical and clinical outcome as well as safety of CT fluoroscopy-guided drain placement in the multimodal clinical complication management of superinfected gastric leakage after sleeve gastrectomy.

Materials and Methods: All consecutive patients who underwent CT fluoroscopy-guided drain placement to treat superinfected postoperative leakage after sleeve gastrectomy in our department between 2007 and 2014 were included in this retrospective study. All interventions were performed on a 16- or 128-row CT scanner under intermittent CT fluoroscopy guidance (15–25mAs, 120 kV). The technical and clinical success rates as well as complications, additional therapies and patient radiation dose were analyzed.

Results: 14 patients (mean age: 43.8 ± 11.3 years, mean BMI: 52.9 ± 13.5, 7 women) who underwent a total of 31 CT fluoroscopy- guided drain placement procedures were included. 30 of 31 interventions (96.8 %) were technically successful. 7 patients underwent more than one intervention due to drain obstruction or secondary dislocation or as further treatment. During and after the intervention no procedure-associated complications occurred. In all patients, inflammation parameters decreased within days after the CT-guided intervention The total interventional dose length product (DLP) was 1561 ± 1035 mGy*cm.

Conclusion: CT fluoroscopy-guided drain placement has been shown to be a safe minimally invasive procedure that rarely leads to complications for treating superinfected gastric leakage occurring after sleeve gastrectomy. We assume that operative revisions in a high-risk patient group can be avoided using this procedure.