Journal
WORLD JOURNAL OF SURGERY
Volume 34, Issue 4, Pages 704-720Publisher
SPRINGER
DOI: 10.1007/s00268-009-0382-y
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- Surgeon Scientist Scholarship
- Royal Australasian College of Surgeons
- Auckland Medical Research Foundation
Ask authors/readers for more resources
The peritoneum is a bilayer serous membrane that lines the abdominal cavity. We present a review of peritoneal structure and physiology, with a focus on the peritoneal inflammatory response to surgical injury and its clinical implications. We conducted a nonsystematic clinical review. A search of the Ovid MEDLINE database from 1950 through January 2009 was performed using the following search terms: peritoneum, adhesions, cytokine, inflammation, and surgery. The peritoneum is a metabolically active organ, responding to insult through a complex array of immunologic and inflammatory cascades. This response increases with the duration and extent of injury and is central to the concept of surgical stress, manifesting via a combination of systemic effects, and local neural pathways via the neuro-immuno-humoral axis. There may be a decreased systemic inflammatory response after minimally invasive surgery; however, it is unclear whether this is due to a reduced local peritoneal reaction. Interventions that dampen the peritoneal response and/or block the neuro-immuno-humoral pathway should be further investigated as possible avenues of enhancing recovery after surgery, and reducing postoperative complications.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available