The outcomes of treatment between primary closure and staged closure in gastroschisis in the pre and post era of the bedside wound retractor silo placement technique.

Purpose: This study aimed to compare the treatment outcomes of the closure methods between pre and post-eras of bedside wound retractor silo placement technique (BSC).

Methods: This retrospective cohort study included infants diagnosed with gastroschisis from 2006-2013, pre-BSC era, and from 2014-2021, BSC era. Infants who had fetal anomalies did not survive before receiving treatment and were treated with the delayed closure method were excluded. Pretreatment covariates were adjusted using propensity score in the multivariable logistic regression.

Results: From 170 patients, 5 were excluded. 111 patients underwent primary closure (PC), 54 patients were staged closure (SC). Successful early enteral feeding was achieved in 70(42%) of patients. Among these patients, 52.2% were in the PC group, and 22.2% in the SC group. PC had a significantly higher rate of successful early enteral feeding compared to SC in the pre-BSC era (OR 21.98, 95%CI 2.59-186.51, p-value 0.005). The BSC era, there was no significant difference between the groups (OR 2.04, 95%CI 0.41-1.20, p-value 0.386). There were no differences in complications between PC and SC.

Conclusions: SC was not inferior in terms of achieving early feeding compared with PC. BSC is an acceptable procedure when a PC was not appropriate and accessible.