Introduction: A totally transanal operation for classic Hirschsprung's disease has become increasingly popular during the last few years. The procedure leaves no scars, is associated with less postoperative pain and discomfort and shortens hospital stay. The most commonly used technique for transanal pull-through is long endorectal dissection leaving a long muscular cuff, which is usually split posteriorly. We present our preliminary results following transanal endorectal operations with a short unsplit muscular cuff.
Materials and methods: Twenty-six patients underwent short-cuff transanal endorectal operation for Hirschsprung's disease between years 2000 and 2002. Patients' hospital records were analysed retrospectively. The collected data included age at operation, associated conditions, hospital stay and time to full enteral feeding, occurrence of pre- and postoperative enterocolitis and preoperative stoma, operative complications, need for postoperative anal dilatations, postoperative perianal skin problems and preliminary data on bowel function.
Results: The median age at operation was 1 month (range 0 - 60 months), 13 patients were operated on in the neonatal period. Four patients had Down's syndrome, 1 had cartilage-hair hypoplasia and one Ondine's syndrome. Five patients had preoperative enterocolitis. Four patients had undergone levelling stoma formation for unremitting constipation or enterocolitis. The proximal ganglionic stoma was concomitantly pulled-through and anastomosed to the anus in all 4 patients with a stoma. One patient with aganglionosis extending to the proximal sigmoid required additional laparoscopic colonic mobilisation. Complications related to surgery did not occur in the present series. Median postoperative hospital stay was 3 days (range 2 - 21 days) and median time to full enteral feeding was 3 days (range 1 - 14). Six patients required anal dilatations, two of those for a period of 3 weeks. The median follow-up time was 6 months (range 1 - 22 months). Fourteen patients had perianal skin rash, which usually resolved within 6 weeks. Postoperative enterocolitis requiring hospitalisation occurred in 1 patient, another patient had mild symptoms suggesting enterocolitis; these responded to oral antibiotic treatment. Early postoperative bowel function was characterised by frequent bowel movements in most patients. This usually resolved within a few months; of the 15 patients with a follow-up of longer than 6 months only 2 have more than 3 bowel movements per day. At the last follow-up frank soiling occurred in 1 patient with Down's syndrome, one patient requires oral laxatives for constipation.
Conclusions: Transanal endorectal pull-through with a short cuff is a safe operation with a low incidence of operative and postoperative complications. Hospital stay and time to full enteral feeds is significantly shorter than after conventional procedures; this is associated with lower hospital costs. Long-term functional outcome is unclear but short-term function is very similar to that after procedures where transanal mucosectomy is combined with open rectosigmoid dissection.