What We Want You to Know About Diverticulitis Surgery

For the millions of Americans who have diverticulitis, the question of surgery is a big one. As colorectal surgeons, here’s what we want our patients to know about the surgical management of diverticulitis.

Diverticulitis can be a particularly painful and disruptive condition that’s responsible for 300,000 hospital admissions and 1.5 million inpatient hospital days in the United States each year.

Whether your diverticulitis becomes acute and sends you to the hospital or you’re able to manage it outside the hospital setting, the question of surgery most always comes up.

At Fairfax Colon & Rectal Surgery, our extensive team of board-certified colorectal surgeons has a deep well of collective experience to draw on when it comes to surgery for diverticulitis and here’s what we want you to know.

Surgery isn’t always necessary

The first thing we want you to know is that diverticulitis isn’t always a road to surgery. In fact, of those 300,000 hospital admissions each year, about 20% end up undergoing surgery. For the rest, the disease is managed with more conservative techniques or the acute diverticulitis flare-up is controlled in the hospital, allowing you to return home to contemplate elective diverticulitis surgery.

Recognizing when diverticulitis is surgical

There are two general types of diverticulitis — complicated and uncomplicated. With the uncomplicated version, there’s inflammation in one or more of the diverticula that have formed in your colon. In many cases of uncomplicated diverticulitis, conservative treatments can work very well and clear the problem up without surgery.

For complicated diverticulitis, which develops in about a quarter of cases of diverticulitis, there are related issues that are making the situation more serious and more uncomfortable for you, such as an:

Abscess
Fistula
Obstruction in your colon
Perforation of your colon

We can also include recurrent diverticulitis in the more complicated category.

In many cases of complicated diverticulitis, surgical management is a good option as we can remove the diseased portion of your colon. That said, there are times when even complicated diverticulitis can be successfully managed without surgery.

Diverticulitis is affecting more young people

It used to be that diverticulitis developed more in older people (and still does), but an increasing number of younger people are developing the disease. According to one study that tracked 5.2 million patients hospitalized for diverticulitis between 2005 and 2020, about 16% of these cases occurred in people under 50.

When surgery is out of your control

We’ve been mentioning hospitalizations for diverticulitis, and some of these are for emergent situations, such as perforations. In these cases, the surgical decision is an obvious one because without intervention, far more serious and even life-threatening issues can develop, such as sepsis.

Making your decision

If we were to leave you with one takeaway, it would be that no two cases of diverticulitis are the same. There’s a lot that goes into the treatment equation, and we determine whether surgery is a good path forward on a case-by-case basis.

The best way to move forward is to sit down with one of our many diverticulitis experts to review your unique situation and goals. To set that in motion, we invite you to schedule a consultation at one of our five offices in the Fairfax, Virginia, area by clicking here.