Surgical Management of Peptic Perforation in a Tertiary Care Center: A Retrospective Study

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study is to estimate disease burden, clinical features, and outcome in the emergency surgical management of peptic perforation in a rural government tertiary care center where patients are socioeconomically very poor and also impacted by lack of good quality health-care facility. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study had retrospectively analyzed 121 patients with peptic perforation who had undergone emergency laparotomy at Midnapore medical college, West Bengal, India, from June 2018 to December 2019. All patients >12 years were included in this study. Exclusion criteria were other traumatic and nontraumatic gastrointestinal perforations. RESULTS: The study population had 112 males and 9 females with a mean age of 44.80 ± 15.29 years and maximum incidence in the 6(th) decade (P = 0.001). Smoking and alcohol were associated with 54.5% and 49.6%, respectively. The symptoms were pain abdomen (100%) with vomiting (38.8%) and fever (33.9%). The signs of hypotension, peritonitis, distension, and pneumoperitoneum were observed in 34.7%, 64.5%, 39.7%, and 83.5%, respectively. Only 20.7% of patients were admitted within the first 24 h. The mean duration of symptoms was 2.3 days. Most perforations were located on the duodenum (74.4%) with duodenal to gastric perforation ratio 2.9:1. The mean size was 1.02 cm. Chest infection (19%) was the most common complication. The mortality rate was 9.1%. The mean length of hospital stay was 11.1 days. CONCLUSION: Peptic perforation remains a major disease burden in our environment predominantly due to late presentation, leading to high morbidity and mortality.