Birmingham Bowel Clinic consultants Ian Geh, Simon Radley and Tariq Ismail had four papers presented at the recent West Midlands Surgical Society Meeting at Walsall Manor Hospital.
The papers covered pre-operative treatment and outcome after curative rectal cancer surgery, colonoscopy completion rates, endothelial cell markers in colorectal cancers and ileostomy closure after rectal cancer surgery.

The paper on ileostomy closure presented by Tom Lees, a 4th Year Medical student won the prize for best presentation at the meeting. The paper which involved the collection of data over 10 years from Queen Elizabeth Hospital and Heart of England looked at the rates of ileostomy reversal after surgery for low rectal cancer.

We found that as many as 20% of ileostomies may not be reversed. We found that non-reversal was more common in those patients who had received radiotherapy prior to the cancer surgery. There were many other reasons for non-reversal but those patients with more advanced disease were also less likely to be reversed.

We concluded that its important to explain this risk to all patients undergoing rectal cancer surgery with an ileostomy and carefully consider other surgical options. This paper is also due to be presented as a poster at the Association of Coloproctology, national conference in Edinburgh in July.