Endoscopic Treatment of Pilonidal Sinus Disease in Paediatric Patients - Abstract
Background: Pilonidal disease is considered a spectrum of disease ranging from acute abscesses to a chronic state most often associated with draining
sinuses in the gluteal fold. An increasing prevalence is seen in children with 3 out of every 250,000 children developing Pilonidal Sinus Disease (PSD). Although
this is a common disease within general and paediatric surgery departments worldwide, there is yet to be an agreement on a ‘Gold Standard ‘of treatment.
Minimally invasive treatment techniques such as EPSiT are a more recent development for pilonidal disease that are showing promising results.
Method: This study is a retrospective case series of children and adolescents who underwent excision of pilonidal disease using EPSiT by a single paediatric
surgeon in Western Australia. The primary outcome measure is recurrence, secondary outcomes include complications, length of hospital stay, time to return to
school/work, post-operative pain, and time to complete wound healing.
Results: No patients suffered recurrence or wound complications at mean follow up of thirteen months. No patients were readmitted to hospital for
procedure related complications. All patients reported complete wound healing at an average of twenty-eight days and definitive total wound closure at six
weeks post operatively. All patients reported the ability to resume daily activities at 2-4 days post operatively.
Conclusion: PEPSiT is a promising method of treating paediatric PSD and may represent a new `Gold Standard’ of treatment in these patients. Our results
were comparable to other studies in the literature. However, more studies and large-scale randomized control trials are necessary in the paediatric patient
cohort.