Background: Acute colorectal obstruction requires immediate surgical treatment. Although one-stage surgery with transanal drainage tubes (TDT) is reportedly safe and feasible, the long-term outcome of this procedure remains unclear.
Aim: To assess the outcome of one-stage surgery using TDT in the acute left colon or rectal obstructions due to colorectal carcinomas.
Methods: Clinicopathological data were recorded from patients with colorectal cancer with acute obstructions between 2006 and 2013.
Results: A total of 43 patients were enrolled including 29 males and 14 females. Among 39 patients, TDT was successful in 33 (84 %) and was incomplete in 6. Thus, 33 patients received one-stage surgery with TDT decompression, and 9 patients, including 6 with incomplete decompression, received one-stage surgery with no decompression. No significant differences in clinicopathological factors were observed between decompression and non-decompression groups. Adjusted analyses revealed that decompression using TDT was significantly associated with OS (hazard ratio 0.24; 95 % confidence interval, 0.08-0.72; p = 0.01). Furthermore, OS in the TDT decompression group was significantly longer than that in the non-decompression group (p = 0.01).
Conclusions: One-stage surgery with decompression using TDT may be effective to avoid stomas and to improve overall survival in patients with obstructing colorectal cancers.