Comparing the results penetrating colon injuries based on intervention by surgeons with different levels of experience in West Indies

BACKGROUND: Numerous studies have established the safety of primary repair for civilian penetrating colonic injuries with little data exploring the experience of surgeon performing the procedure. Owing to financial, staff and administrative constraints in the developing world, surgeons-in-training sometimes find themselves faced with having to perform major surgery for penetrating colonic injuries with no experienced surgeon in attendance, but available for advice via phone. With this thought, we collected retrospective data to analyse our outcomes based on this practice. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Over a 10-year period 62 patients with penetrating colonic trauma underwent laparotomies with analysis done on 53 cases. Severity of injury, grade of operating surgical staff and outcome were noted. Outcomes of “inexperienced surgeons” and “experienced surgeons” were compared to determine if a difference exists in outcome based on experience or grade of surgeon. RESULTS: A total of 53 patients with penetrating colon injures underwent primary repair and/or anastomosis with 18 (34%) performed by “inexperienced surgeons” and 35 (66%) by “experienced surgeons”. There was one death unrelated to colon trauma with an inexperienced surgeon and one anastomotic leak in a patient operated on by an experienced surgeon. CONCLUSION: This data supports previous reports on the safety of primary repair for penetrating colonic injuries and raises the point that in cases of lower severity of injury inexperienced surgeons have similar results to experienced surgeons with regard to primary repair.