[Endoscopic percutaneous gastrostomy with gastropexy: a safe technical choice]

Percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy is an interesting method of providing enteral nutrition or gastric decompression in patients who are candidates for operative gastrostomy or nasoenteric tube feeding. We report our experience with percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy with gastropexy (Introducer T-Fastener) in 41 patients. This method uses a technique in which the anterior gastric wall is non-surgically sutured to the anterior abdominal wall before catheter insertion. This technique was successful in all patients, including one subject with a Billroth II hemigastrectomy. Enteral nutrition was started in all cases within 24 hours of the end of the procedure. The medium enteral nutrition period to date is 482.5 days. There were no deaths related to the procedure and no patients had major specific abdominal complications requiring urgent surgical repair. Eight patients complained of minor specific complications which were successfully resolved in all cases with simple conservative procedures and/or therapies. These results indicate that the Introducer T-Fastener method for performing percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy is rapid, safe, and inexpensive.