Treatment of Acute Uncomplicated Colonic Diverticulitis

Abstract: The overall aim of this thesis was to evaluate the clinical management of AUD with regard to the no-antibiotic policy and its long-term effect, treatment on an outpatient basis and the potential health-care cost savingsStudy I:  a retrospective study at Västmanlands Hospital that evaluated and confirmed the adherence to the no-antibiotic policy in patients with AUD and its safety regarding complications and recurrences. A total of 246 patients with acute diverticulitis were identified, of which 195 had computed tomography (CT) confirmed AUD. In total, 91.3% of these patients did not receive any antibiotics and only two developed complications.Study II: a retrospective study with the aim to conduct a long-term follow-up of all Swedish patients who participated in the AVOD trial in terms of recurrences, complications, surgery and quality of life. The medical records of 96% of the patients were reviewed with a mean follow up of 11 years. Quality of life questionnaires were sent out to all patients. There were no differences regarding the rates of recurrence, complications or surgery for diverticulitis. There were no differences in the quality of life between groups according to the EQ-5D questionnaire.Study III: a prospective study where 155 patients with CT-verified AUD as were treated as outpatients without antibiotics. On day 3, patients reported an average pain score of 1.8 of 10 on the VAS scale and only 30% of patients were using analgesia. Four patients returned to hospital because of treatment failure.Study IV: a retrospective cohort study at Västmanland’s Hospital evaluated the impact on admissions, complication rates and health-care costs of the policy of outpatient treatment without using antibiotics. Medical records of all patients diagnosed with AUD in the year before (2011) and after (2014) the implementation of outpatient management without antibiotics were reviewed. Overall 494 episodes of AUD were identified: 254 in 2011 and 240 in 2014. Three patients developed complications in 2011 and four in 2014. The proportion of patients managed as outpatients was 20% in 2011 compared with 61% in 2014. The hospital admissions, total length of stay of and total health-care costs were almost halved.In conclusion, these studies confirm the low complication and recurrence rates of AUD and strengthens findings that antibiotics have no benefit in the treatment of this disease. The no-antibiotic policy had no impact on short- or long-term outcomes regarding the rates of recurrence, complications, surgery or quality of life. Outpatient management was found to be feasible and safe, and significantly reduced admissions, which led to large health-care cost savings.