Diverticular disease · Guide
Diverticular disease explorer: guide
Show the large bowel within the body, enter where the pouches are, how many and what the scan showed from the report, explain the treatment and share a matching picture sheet.
For patients and families
Look at the picture together
The picture opens with the whole body. Choose Abdomen to see the large bowel, then Bowel close-up to move close to the part your report describes, usually the sigmoid colon, low on the left side of the tummy. The small bowel and the large bowel are see-through. Drag to turn it and scroll or pinch to zoom.
Show what your scan found
Your clinician can enter where the small pouches (diverticula) are, whether there are a few or many, whether the report describes inflammation (diverticulitis), and whether it describes a collection of pus (an abscess), a burst (perforation) or a narrowed part (stricture). The number and places of the pouches in the picture are an example. The slice in the corner shows a schematic cut across the bowel. The shapes are not a copy of your scan.
Things you could ask
“Can you show me where the pouches are, and what the scan found?”
“What would happen with each treatment?”
“What should I look out for at home?”
Take it home
Ask for a picture sheet with the views you discussed, your team’s explanation, what the large bowel does and where to find help. A QR code reopens the same model settings on your phone. Names, notes and contact details are never included in that code or saved online.
If an operation with a stoma has been discussed, the stoma explorer shows where a stoma sits and how it works.
For clinicians
Start with orientation
The explorer uses the colon on the shared colon route from the colon explorer, with its sigmoid, descending, transverse and ascending parts in the same places, and the stomach, liver, small bowel, rectum and bladder, on the shared body, renderer and labels from the rectal explorer. The colon and small bowel are see-through. It opens at normal anatomy, with no findings or treatment.
Set up from the report
| Control | What to set |
|---|---|
| Findings on the model | Add diverticular disease. Changing any finding setting also adds it. |
| Where the pouches are | Sigmoid colon, descending colon, or throughout the colon (drawn with about half the pouches in the sigmoid colon). Right-sided disease is not drawn separately. Inflammation, a collection, a burst or a narrowing are drawn in the sigmoid colon, or in the descending colon when that is chosen. |
| How many pouches | A few or many, as the report describes. The number and places drawn are an example and are not shown as numbers. |
| Inflammation (diverticulitis) | Yes draws a red, swollen sleeve around the bowel where the finding is drawn. The model does not judge severity (for example the Hinchey grade). |
| What else the scan showed | None, a collection (abscess), a burst (perforation) or a narrowing (stricture), each drawn schematically. |
| Size of the collection | 10–100 mm, the largest dimension of the collection, as written in the report. The number box and slider stay in step; the collection is drawn at this size. Changing it also sets the scan result to a collection. |
Explain a selected plan
Fibre, fluids and pain relief and Antibiotics for diverticulitis draw nothing extra and say that nothing is removed. Drain for an abscess, with antibiotics is available when a collection is entered: it colours the collection teal (area treated) and draws the drain from the skin; After treatment shows the collection gone and the bowel still in place. Operation to remove the affected part of the bowel colours the sigmoid colon (or the descending colon, when chosen) teal; After treatment shows the two ends joined, with a teal ring at the join. The text says that the bowel is usually joined back together and that sometimes a stoma is needed, for a time or for good; stomas themselves are shown in the stoma explorer. The team selects the plan; the model does not judge which treatment is suitable.
Picture sheet and QR code
Capture up to four views with Snapshot, then use Picture sheet (PDF). The sheet can include a help page with life after the treatment chosen. The QR link stores validated model settings only. Changing any model setting clears older snapshots.
Limits
- The body is an adult’s. The bowel’s length and loops are an average adult’s and schematic.
- The number, size and places of the pouches are an example. Inflammation, a collection, a burst and a narrowing are drawn schematically at one place; bleeding, a fistula (for example to the bladder), free air and peritonitis are not shown.
- Severity grades, blood tests, colonoscopy findings and the choice between treatments are not modelled. Keyhole and open surgery, and operations with a stoma (such as Hartmann’s procedure), are described in words, not drawn.
Sources and review
- NHS: diverticular disease and diverticulitis
- NICE guideline NG147. Diverticular disease: diagnosis and management, 2019.
Practising colorectal surgeon, gastroenterologist and radiologist review is still needed for clinical teaching use. Please send corrections through feedback.