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Query: UMLS:C0019270 (hernia)
 15,856 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

The significant increase in the number of people older than seventy forces the physician to be acquainted with both psychological and physical alterations induced by aging and to devote an ever increasing proportion of time for recognition and treatment os such alterations. In the medical sense, the biological and physiological age is more important than the chronological age. With increasing age there is--especially concerning the digestive tract and its accessory organs--a rise in the incidence of organic affections and a decline in the frequency of functional disorders. Besides it is wise to know, that the increasing age there is often a coexistence of multiple degenerative disorders and disease states, involving many body systems and organs. On the background of this recognition it is also important to know, that prognosis too varies with age because of the coexistence of individually prognosticated disease states and moreover to realize, that elderly patients do not tolerate invasive and prolonged surgical procedures. Structural or functional disturbances of the digestive organs by aging processes do not cause death per se, but can become one important factor; degenerative sclerotic vascular alterations bear relationship to the poorly contractile vasculature that brings up difficulties in the control of hemorrhagic gastroduodenal ulcers. Many gastrointestinal disorders in elderly patients occur with an equal frequency in younger patients, some are more common in the geriatric population; these include hiatal hernia, carcinoma of esophagus, stomach, pancreas, bile ducts and colon, intestinal obstruction (ileus) by neoplastic growth, gallstone ileus, external hernia and operative adhesions and especially diverticular diseases of the colon and its complications and ischemic colitis by mesenteric vascular occlusion. Cirrhosis of the liver is often diagnosed for the first time in the older age groups while acute viral hepatitis uses to run a cholestatic course and is therefore often misdiagnosed as mechanical obstruction. In general history is difficult to obtain, the response of the organism with temperature and white blood count to stress is often delayed and rigidity associated with an underlying inflammatory disease involving the peritoneum is often delayed and rigidity associated with an underlying inflammatory disease involving the peritoneum is often atypical. Because of this limited reaction to severe stress, early surgical intervention is imperative in the elderly patients.
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PMID:[Problems of the so-called geriatric gastrointestinal diseases]. 120 46

Colonic pseudo-obstruction (Ogilvie's syndrome) may occur in surgical patients, particularly those who have had orthopedic or blunt trauma, have uremia or diabetes, have complex metabolic or cardiac failure, have metastatic cancer involving the lymph nodes and neural tissue, or are addicted to narcotics. Although a single true cause has not been identified by fulfilling Koch's postulates, the clinical pattern has been recognized in a variety of surgical patients, and this pattern must be distinguished from true obstruction of the colon. Tumor or internal hernia may constitute an obstruction, but the important differential diagnosis of cecal volvulus must be excluded. Ischemic colitis may be confused with Ogilvie's syndrome or may follow it. Gangrene, infarction, and perforation may ensue as colon diameter increases and particularly if cecal distention reaches above 14 cm. This arbitrary number for cecal dilatation should not be awaited before treatment is instituted if signs of devitalization of the gut or peritoneal signs have developed in the patient. Treatment has changed recently with the widespread application of colonoscopy. Endoscopy is helpful in relieving distention but may also be dangerous in the patient with a massively distended colon, particularly at the level of the thin-walled cecum. Colonoscopy also appears to be associated with a high rate of treatment failure and recurrence. Surgical decompression may take the form of cecostomy or may require exteriorization or resection of the colon if infarction has occurred. A series of 12 patients has been presented. The patients were all referred to a single surgeon in a university medical center over a 4 1/2 year period with clinical patterns not suggestive of a common cause but a similar clinical evolution of Ogilvie's syndrome. The prognosis for such patients in whom the complication is recognized early and in whom decompression is performed endoscopically or surgically is encouraging. If recognition is late and particularly if perforation and gangrene result, mortality is nearly 50 percent.
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PMID:Colonic pseudo-obstruction in surgical patients. 397 Mar 26

Patients with abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) frequently have other abdominal pathologies of surgical interest (other diseases, OD). Out of 1,375 elective open aortic replacements for AAA, 315 cases with OD were subdivided in Group 1 (82 patients with "clean wound" OD) and Group 2 (233 patients with "clean-contaminated wound" OD). The results of the sub-groups in which OD was treated at the same time as AAA were analysed (1a, 66 cases and 2a, 86 cases) and compared with OD not treated at the same time as AAA (1b, 16 cases and 2b, 147 cases). EVAR was done in 12 patients with a infrarenal AAA and concomitant abdominal disease. In this group post-operative complications occurred in two patients (endoleaks) and no sign of endograft infection was developed. Mean follow-up was 36 months. Mortality was 0% in Group 1a, 1b, 2b and 5.8% in Group 2a. In Group 1a there were one haemoperitoneum, one ischaemic colitis and one graft infection. In Group 1b there were 4 nefrectomies for renal carcinoma and three emergency hernia repairs within 18 months from AAA operation. In Group 2a the follow-up was uneventful. In Group 2b there was no acute complication of OD and 57.2% of patients were subsequently operated for OD. In the EVAR group the 30-day and late mortality rates were 0 and 25%, respectively and all deaths were cancer-related. Contemporary correction of OD in open surgery for AAA should be performed in clean wound cases, while clean-contaminated operations can be done only in selected cases. EVAR is a valid alternative technique to open vascular surgery for the concomitant treatment of aortic aneurysms and abdominal pathologies.
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PMID:Lesson learned from early and long-term results of 327 cases of coexisting surgical abdominal diseases and aortic aneurysms treated in open and endovascular surgery. 2240 92