This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Related article  • Similar articles in this journal  Topic Collections  • Surgery  • Surgical Interventions  • Colorectal Surgery  • Alert me on articles by topic  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Edward H. Livingston, MD

Arch Surg. 2009;144(4):338.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

What constitutes a leak after colonic anastomoses and how often should it occur? These questions are answered in the article by Damrauer et al on this topic. Damrauer et al first offer a precise definition of a leak: leaks are "communications between the gastrointestinal lumen and the peritoneum at the anastomosis." This definition is important to distinguish between fluid collections associated with leaks from abscesses that may form from bacterial contamination of the peritoneal cavity that is not associated with a leak. Failure to make this distinction has caused a wide variance in reported colonic anastomotic leak rates, ranging from 0.5% to 30%. True leaks are relatively uncommon. In this series of 4019 patients undergoing colon operations at a single institution between 1992 and 2004, the leak rate was 1.5%.

This number is important. It provides us with a benchmark at which to evaluate surgical performance. . . . [Full Text of this Article]

AUTHOR INFORMATION


CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?

RELATED ARTICLE

Contained Anastomotic Leaks After Colorectal Surgery: Are We Too Slow to Act?
Scott M. Damrauer, Liliana Bordeianou, and David Berger
Arch Surg. 2009;144(4):333-338.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT