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- Published on: 5 March 2021
- Published on: 5 March 2021Technical factors of venting gastrostomy and their impact on patient experience.
Dear Editor,
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We read with great interest the article by Curry et al. on the outcomes after venting gastro-/jejunostomy from our own institution.
While venting gastrostomy has a potentially important role to play in cancer palliation, it is offered in only approximately 60% of UK centres. The outcome and patient experience is highly dependent on good tube function. Continuous decompression of the stomach and upper small bowel is essential to alleviate symptoms and stop the development of complications.
Little is published on the technical aspects of the procedure, how to undertake this safely and what the requirements for patient selection and aftercare are. Would the authors please be so kind, as to provide some technical detail to guide the readership?
To our knowledge there are no licensed devices for this purpose. What type of tubes did the authors review (push-PEGs +/- jejunal extension, G-tubes with gastropexy, gastrojejunostomy or transgastric jejunostomy tubes), what was the experience of 4-point gastropexy for GJ-tubes and what size was do they recommend to achieve adequate drainage, bearing in mind that balloon-retained silicone tubes have a much smaller inner lumen than polyurethane PEG tubes?
Our attempts using 20Fr push-PEG tubes led to very poor patient experience, which has been improved by switching to gastro-jejunostomy tubes, as they achieve better drainage due accessing the fluid in the duodenum rather than in the stomach, we...Conflict of Interest:
None declared.