Acute Abdominal Complications Following Hip Surgery
B. Deleanu, R. Prejbeanu, D. Vermesan, H. Haragus, I. Icma, V. PredescuOriginal article, no. 2, 2014
Hip surgeries are some of the most common and successfulorthopedic procedures. Although rarely, abdominal complicationsdo occur and are associated with unfavorable outcomes.We aimed to identify and describe the severe abdominalcomplications that appear in patients under-going elective ortraumatic hip surgery. A four year retrospective electronic databaseresearch identified 408 elective primary hip replacements,51 hip revisions and 1040 intra and extracapsular proximalfemur fractures. Out of these, three males and 4 femalesbetween 64 - 84 years old were identified to have developedacute abdominal complications: perforated acute ulcer (3),acute cholecystitis (2), volvulus (1), toxic megacolon withperitonitis (1) and acute colonic pseudo-obstruction (1).Complications debuted 3 â€" 10 days after index orthopedicsurgery. Acute perioperative abdominal complications arerarely encountered during orthopedic surgery. When these dooccur, they do so almost exclusively in patients with hippathology, comorbidities and most often lead to lifethreateningsituations. We thus emphasize the need for earlyidentification and appropriate management by bothorthopedic and general surgery doctors in order to improvepatient safety.
