To study the effects of the omental patch on the repair of duodenal injuries, we created a full thickness duodenal incision in 90 female Holtzman rats that were divided into 2 groups. G1 (n=45) had repair of the incision with an omental patch after a suture of the lesion, G2 (n=45) had a simple running suture of the incision. A control group G3 (N=45) had a laparotomy only. Subgrupos of 15 animals from each group were then killed at 2, 7, and 14 days after the repair and a 4cm segment of the duodenum that included the repaired injury was ressected. This segment was subjected to air insuflation in order to test the scar’s resistance measured as cm/Hg necessary to disrupt the repair. The coefficient of variation was used to evaluate the internal variability of the results obtained and whenever there was variability among the factors, the least significant difference test was applied to the results. We concluded that the omental patch did not promote any more resistance to a simple closure of a duodenal incision in any of the three post operative days in which the test was done.
Omentum; Duodenum; Wounds and injuries; Rats
