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Background: The definitive treatment of Hirschsprung's disease is the removal of the aganglionic bowel by a pull-through surgery. In most cases, this surgery is performed in infancy or in the neonatal period as presentation in older children and adulthood is uncommon., Materials and Methods: It is a retrospective study of 20 patients above two-year-old who underwent a transanal Soave one-stage endorectal pull-through procedure for Hirschsprung's disease between January 2002 and December 2010., Results: Twenty patients were recruited in this study. Fourteen were males and six were females. Patient ages ranged from 2 to 14 years (median age: five years and three months). All patients presented with persistent constipation and abdominal distension. Two of them had an intestinal obstruction that required colostomy. Ten patients (50%) had a recto-sigmoid Hirschsprung's disease. All patients were operated on using a Soave one-stage endorectal pull-through procedure. The laparoscopy was necessary during the pull-through in three cases. The average duration of the intervention was 240 minutes. That represents almost the double of the duration of the same procedure in newborns and infants in our department (130 minutes). Early postoperative complications included one case of anastomosis leakage and one case of intussusception. Late postoperative complications were perineum irritation in five cases (25%), anal stenosis in four cases (20%) and enterocolitis in one case (5%). None of our patients developed fecal incontinence. Soiling was reported in four cases (20%). There was no death., Conclusion: Soave transanal one-stage endorectal pull-through is safely feasible in children of more than two years of age. Laparoscopy may be necessary whenever there are difficulties in the pull-through.

Background and objectives: Soave transanal procedure for Hirschsprung disease (HD) is most commonly performed at early age with good outcome. In our center we adopted this technique in many patients in different age groups without assisted laparoscopic abdominal approach. We herein aim to describe different technical aspects, outcome and success rate of Soave procedure among our patients. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed our series of HD patients who underwent the Soave transanal approach, for postoperative stricture, anastomotic leak, enterocolitis, and subsequent bowel functions. Patients were divided into two groups: group 1: the early neonatal group (0-1month) and group 2: the late presentation group(3-14years). Results: Among the 17 patients with HD operated in our center, 13 underwent Soave transanal resection, 1 was lost from follow up, 2 had a levelling colostomy prior to referral and 1 had ileostomy. The average length of resection was 20±10.5 cm. The mean follow-up period was 12.2 months (range 5-22 months). Seven patients were 3-14 years old. At follow-up none had fecalincontinence or constipation requiring laxatives. All patients had voluntary bowel movements. Conclusions: Our results support the fact that a single stage Soave approach without transabdominal dissection is an excellent technique for patients presenting with late HD with an excellent outcome. A multicenter prospective study with larger number of patient is essential to validate our results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]