IT HAS been a common clinical practice to "reperitonealize" areas of injury to the visceral peritoneum in order to prevent the formation of adhesions between such areas and omentum, intestine or other intraabdominal structures. The usual method of doing this for serosal injuries to the bowel is to draw adjacent uninjured serosa together over the area of injury with interrupted sutures of a fine nonabsorbable material, such as 0000 silk, taking delicate bites of tissue with a small round-pointed needle.
Experiments carried out by Chandy in this laboratory have indicated that silk itself commonly becomes encapsulated by omentum and that the usual seromuscular stitch tied in place would, of itself, produce an adhesion in the experimental animal (rat).
EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES
The following experiments were carried out to see if the incidence of adhesions resulting from areas of bowel denuded of serosa was reduced or increased by oversewing.The animals used