Early Surgery Versus 3 Days Non-surgical Management in Acute Small Bowel Obstruction (SURGI-BOW)

For uncomplicated acute small bowel obstruction (aSBO), the "Bologna guidelines" recommend non-surgical management of 72 hours before considering surgery. This treatment is based on the placement of a nasogastric tube and the correction of hydro-electrolyte disorders. Non-surgical management is only effective in 60 to 70% and surgery is therefore necessary in 30 to 40% of cases after medical treatment for at least 3 days. This therefore leads to an increase in the length of hospital stay. Some authors also point out that postponing surgery for 3 days would aggravate the morbidity and mortality of surgery. Indeed, aSBO surgery has a complication rate of 10-40% and a mortality of up to 4%. There is a lack of studies evaluating what is the best management strategy for aSBO, especially with regard to the duration of medical treatment. Many recent studies plead in favor of early surgical tre