Patterns of Intestinal Motility Recovery during the Early Stage following Abdominal Surgery: Clinical and Manometric Study

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the pattern of recovery of intestinal motility using manometric and clinical assessment in the postoperative ileus following abdominal surgery. We reviewed the charts of 18 patients who underwent partial colectomy for colon cancer (group A, without vagotomy) and compared them to those of 15 patients who underwent gastrectomy with truncal vagotomy and reconstruction by the Billroth I technique (group B, with vagotomy). A three-lumen catheter was inserted via the nose into the proximal jejunum for drainage of intestinal fluids and to record intestinal motility at laparotomy. The first appearance of a burst activity following a silent period and a migrating motor complex (MMC) was at 3.8 hours (mean) and 16.4 hours, respectively, in group A, and at 2.5 and 14.3 hours, respectively, in group B. The first audible bowel sounds and the time of feeling abdominal fullness and passage of flatus was at 34.8, 47.5, and 62.9 hours (group A), and at 43.0, 53.8, and 77.9 hours (group B), respectively. The peak volume of nasointestinal drainage was recorded at 16 to 24 hours in group A and 40 to 48 hours in group B (p < 0.05). As measured by manometric examination, an MMC reappeared within a few hours after surgery. Physiologic postoperative ileus was ended when MMCs extended throughout the gastrointestinal (GI) tract with forwarding GI fluids.