Abdominal and pelvic adhesions: Possible role of leiomyomas and skin scar anomaly in profiling high risk patients

Background and aims: Adhesions can cause important morbidity including abdominal and pelvic pain, intestinal obstructions, and infertility. When adhesions are formed, there is no efficient method, nowadays, to resolve them, thus the reduction of their prevalence relies on the prevention. Profiling high risk patients for abdominal and pelvic adhesions (APA) is an important step to this prevention. The risk factors of adhesions in our institution, the association between APA, leiomyomas and skin scar anomaly (SSA) were investigated. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted from March 1st to June 30th 2013 including patients who underwent laparotomy or laparoscopy. Patients’ characteristics, presence of a SSA and leiomyomas, as related to adhesions, were analyzed. Student’s t, Pearson’s Khi-square, Fisher’s Exact, Mann-Whitney tests and logistic regression were used. P values cant. Results: The frequency of adhesions was 41.74%. Patients had a mean age of 32.69 ± 8.94 years. Those with a previous abdominal surgery (PAS), SSA and leiomyomas had respectively 12 times [OR: 11.98, CI95 (4.63 - 30.97)], 3 times [OR: 2.79, CI95 (1.16 - 6.71) and 2.5 times [(OR: 2.49, CI95 (1.07 - 5.78)] more adhesions. In logistic regression, a PAS and leiomyomas remained associated significantly to adhesions with p = 0.000 and p = 0.037 respectively. Conclusion: In peritoneal adhesions, leiomyomas and SSA are other factors that may allow a cautious selection of high risk patients who must benefit from particular attention during surgery. Further well designed studies are necessary to investigate the accurate clinical relation among those three conditions.