[Manual colonic anastomosis with continuous single layer suture. Our experience]

The use of staplers has produced a reduction on operative times in the colorectal surgery without reduction of anastomotic complications. We present our experience about colonic anastomoses (ileo-colic, colo-colic and colo-rectal intraperitoneal anastomoses) with extramucosal one-layer continuous suture in synthetic slow absorbable one-filament. In the period January 2000-January 2003 we performed 157 operations on the large bowel, with 113 manual colonic anastomoses. Our results are similar to the best series of literature. The hand-sewn suture actually represents our common technique for the anastomoses of the large bowel.