Etude rétrospective sur l’efficacité des procinétiques gastro-intestinaux et les facteurs de risque de l’iléus postopératoire chez des chevaux opérés de lésions de l’intestin grêle

The reasons which motivated this retrospective study are the lack of clinical data on the efficacy of gastrointestinal prokinetics in the literature and the wish to compare the factors favouring postoperative ileus in our clinic with those put forward by other authors.
Material used for this study includes two homogenous groups composed each one by twenty five horses which underwent surgery for small intestinal pathology. One group was treated with gastrointestinal prokinetics systematically, whereas the other one not. No significant difference about the incidence or the duration of postoperative ileus was found between the two groups. A statistical analysis searched in these fifty horses the risk factors associated with the development of postoperative ileus among the following parameters: the breed, the age, the sex, the gravity score, the shock score, the packed cell volume at the admission in clinic, the protocol of induction of anaesthesia, the duration of anaesthesia, performing an enterectomy and the length of the resected intestine, the concomitant presence of a strangulated or not lesion of the large intestine, and the quantity of sedative α2 agonists administrated during the postoperative period. Only the Demi-sang Belge breed and the quantity of sedative drugs administrated after the recovery from anaesthesia seems to be significantly more important in the group where horses developed a postoperative ileus. Any factor preventing postoperative ileus was not displayed in this study.