Here is the link:
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1360119/I know this study is about
ten years old, but I hadn't come across it until someone posted about
it today over at jpouch.org. It is great that they can now give a pretty accurate prediction of a patient's chances of J-pouch success or failure before surgery happens, which will be invaluable in the decision-making process. However, what I found even more interesting was the data on the improvement of J-pouch success rates over time, summarized in the following quote:
"The Cleveland Clinic series presented today suggested an overall failure rate over this 20-year period of about
4%, although they stratified the failures by time during the overall study period. In the 1980s the failure rate was around 15%. In the 1990s it dropped down to about
4%.
In the last 5 years it has been approximately 2%. Again, the main contributor to failure was Crohn’s disease or suspected Crohn’s-related complications."
Things to keep in mind when looking at these stats:
1) This study was done entirely on Cleveland Clinic patients, so the statistics represent some top-notch surgeons. Success rates are always higher with more experienced surgeons.
2) Since this study was done ten years ago, "the last five years" refers to the time period around the year 2000. I'd imagine that rates have improved even more since then.
3) This includes both hand-sewn and stapled techniques. Other studies have shown that success/failure rates greatly improve with the double stapled technique which is almost all that is used these days.
4) As some people at the Ostomy forum and j-pouch.org will attest to, "failure" in this study is when things are so bad that the j-pouch was removed. Therefore "success" in this case does not necessarily mean that all of the people from this study still living with j-pouches are happy and free of issues.