The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Vol 71, 286-290, Copyright © 1976 by The American Association for Thoracic Surgery and The Western Thoracic Surgical Association
Fixation of Celestin tube to the anterior abdominal wall. A new technique
I Asfaw, NW Thomas, J Iturregui and A Arbulu
Palliative intubation in the management of an unresectable carcinoma of the
esophagus can be accomplished by "push through" or "pull through"
techniques. The most frequently encountered complication is tube
dislodgment-proximal or distal migration. Dislodgment occurs more
freqeuntly with the "push through" tubes such as the Souttar tube than with
the "pull through" tubes such as the Celestin tube. The incidence of
migration reported for the "pull through" tubes varies from 3 to 14 per
cent. In order to prevent migration, we sutured the tube to the anterior
abdominal wall in 6 patients. The sixth patient developed a gastrocutaneous
fistula and fasciitis at the point of anterior abdominal wall fixation. In
the next 4 cases, we used a two-suture technique, in which no single suture
passed from the gastric lumen to the anterior abdominal wall fascia. The
Celestin tube was fixed to the gastric wall over a Dacron felt pledget and
this pledget was then anchored to the rectus fascia. This technique has
prevented both migration of the tube and complications related to gastric
perforation.