Giant colonic diverticulum,clinical presentation,diagnosis and treatment: Systematic review of 166 cases

AIM: To investigate the clinical presentation,diagnosis,and treatment of giant colonic diverticulum(GCD,by means of a complete and updated literature review).GCD is a rare manifestation of diverticular disease of the colon.Less than 200 studies on GCD were published in the literature,predominantly case reports or small patient series.METHODS: A systematic review of the literature was performed using the Embase and PubM ed databases toidentify all the GCD studies.The following MESH search headings were used: "giant colonic diverticulum"; "giant sigmoid diverticulum".The "related articles" function was used to broaden the search,and all of the abstracts,studies,and citations were reviewed by two authors.The following outcomes were of interest: the disease and patient characteristics,study design,indications for surgery,type of operation,and postoperative outcomes.Additionally,a subgroup analysis of cases treated in the last 5 years was performed to show the current trends in the treatment of GCD.A GCD case in an elderly patient treated in our department by a sigmoidectomy with primary anastomosis and a diverting ileostomy is presented as a typical example of the disease.RESULTS: In total,166 GCD cases in 138 studies were identified in the literature.The most common clinical presentation was abdominal pain,which occurred in 69% of the cases.Among the physical signs,an abdominal mass was detected in 48% of the cases,whereas 20% of the patients presented with fever and 14% with abdominal tenderness.Diagnosis is based predominantly on abdominal computed tomography.The most frequent treatment was colic resection with en-bloc resection of the diverticulum,performed in 57.2% of cases,whereas Hartmann's procedure was followed in 11.4% of the cases and a diverticulectomy in 10.2%.An analysis of sixteen cases reported in the last 5 years showed that the majority of patients were treated with sigmoidectomy and en-bloc resection of the diverticulum; the postoperative mortality was null,morbidity was very low(1 patient was hospitalized in the intensive care unit for postoperative hypotension),and the patients were discharged 4-14 d after surgery.CONCLUSION: Giant colonic diverticulum is a rare manifestation of diverticular diseases.Surgical treatment,consisting predominantly of colonic resection with en bloc resection of the diverticulum,is thepreferred option for GCD and guarantees excellent results.