Harmonizing Practices: WSES' abdominal wall closure guidelines echo American and European Hernia Societies' strategies

In 2022, the World Society of Emergency Surgery (WSES), uniting global trauma and emergency surgeons, identified a critical gap: the absence of guidelines for abdominal wall closure in the emergency setting. In a remarkable turnaround, the WSES has published a guideline in 2023 named ECLAPTE:  Effective Closure of LAParoTomy in Emergency.

ECLAPTE pinpoints six crucial actions to reduce complications in relation to abdominal wall closure and recommends closing the abdominal wall with a suture-to-wound-length ratio of 4:1, using the small bites technique.

This guideline, designed to mitigate complications such as incisional hernias, demonstrates that WSES shares the same vision as the American and European hernia societies. This alignment marks a significant step towards the implementation of this technique.

Reference: Frassini, S. et al. ECLAPTE: Effective Closure of LAParoTomy in Emergency—2023 World Society of Emergency Surgery guidelines for the closure of laparotomy in emergency settings. World J Emerg Surg 2023; 18:42. https://wjes.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13017-023-00511-w. Epub 2023 Jul 23.

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