Sutureless jejuno-jejunal anastomosis in gastric cancer patients: A comparison with handsewn procedure in a single institute

Abstract

Background: The biofragmentable anastomotic ring has been used to this day for various types of anastomosis in the gastrointestinal tract, but it has not yet achieved widespread acceptance among surgeons. The purpose of this retrospective study is to compare surgical outcomes of sutureless with suture method of Roux-and-Y jejunojejunostomy in patients with gastric cancer. Methods. Two groups of patients were obtained based on anastomosis technique (sutureless group versus hand sewn group): perioperative outcomes were recorded for every patient. Results: The mean time spent to complete a sutureless anastomosis was 114 min, whereas the time spent to perform hand sewn anastomosis was 237 min. Estimated intraoperative blood loss was 17832ml in the sutureless group and 18223ml in the suture-method group with no significant differences. No complications were registered related to enteroanastomosis. Intraoperative mortality was none for both groups. Conclusions: The Biofragmentable Anastomotic Ring offers a safe and time-saving method for the jejuno-jejunal anastomosis in gastric cancer surgery, and for this purpose the ring has been approved as a standard method in our clinic. Nevertheless currently there are few studies on upper gastrointestinal sutureless anastomoses and this could be the reason for the low uptake of this device. © 2012 Marano et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.