However, this group must be divided up into early and late deaths. These deaths accentuate the need Table 6. Intestinal Adhesions 7 years Table 7. 1 Closure colostomy leak 1 Inhalation gastric contents for long term follow-up when reporting the mortality of Hirschsprung's disease. Four patients died of an illness that sounds like Enterocolitis, namely, sudden attacks of diarrhea and vomiting.
Little information is available as they died at other hospitals or at school.
Postmortem examination was non-contributory but was not carried out by pediatric pathologists. Only one of these patients had had a definite attack of Enterocolitis before his operation. Six deaths were due to anstomotic leaks, two of these anastomoses being covered by a colostomy or ileostomy. However, both these latter patients were atypical in that one pa-tient had a difficult pullthrough performed as a secondary operation and required an ileorectal anastomosis, and the other patient was a mongol. Many surgeons do not routinely cover their anastomoses with a colostomy and do not appear to have any problems as a result This has not been our experience.