EXPERIMENTAL METHOD FOR AN EVERTING END-TO-END ANASTOMOSIS IN THE GASTROINTESTINAL TRACT

Abstract

IN WORK done previously in our laboratory on the blood supply of the esophagus, approximately 25% of the dogs on which resections were made were seen to retch on solid food two weeks after conventional esophageal anastomoses.¹In later attempts to transplant sections of viable intestine and other tissues into surgical defects in the esophagus the regurgitation of food and fluid was such a prominent feature of the postoperative course that resultant malnutrition usually jeopardized the end-result. The edema and induration often persisted with a high degree of temporary stenosis for 10 to 14 days. It is largely for this reason that many surgeons rely on the weaker, more time-consuming side-to-side anastomosis in small-bowel resections. The conventional anastomosis occasionally presents the surgeon with a serious complication elsewhere, in the form of the nonfunctioning anastomosis. These problems prompted a review of suture and anastomotic techniques in the hope that a