Experience of General Surgery Residents in the Creation of Small Bowel and Colon Anastomoses

With the introduction of stapling devices (SDs), the proportion of hand-sewn (HS) intestinal anastomoses (IAs) has declined. As more IAs are constructed with SDs, there are fewer opportunities for general surgery residents (GSRs) to acquire the skills for HS techniques during their training.

Data for this study were extracted from an existing database of all IAs performed at the Department of Surgery of the Morristown Medical Center since 2003. For the purposes of this study, a 5.5-year timeframe was used between July 2006 and 2011, which contained 1659 IA operations on adult patients with resident involvement. GSRs of the 5-year general surgery residency program were grouped by postgraduate year (PGY) for further analysis.

The number of all IAs created by each resident during the 5-year training was 67.2 on average. Most of these operations were done in the last 2 years of the training: 45.1% of all IAs in PGY5 and 37.3% of all IAs in PGY4. Of all, 1659 IAs performed in the study period, 711 (42.9% of total) were done laparoscopically and 948 (57.1% of all IAs) were done as open operations. Laparoscopic operations had a proportionally higher rate of SD use when compared to open cases (90.9% vs 82.4%). On average, each resident constructed 9.4 HS IAs (13.98% of all IAs) and 57.8 SD IAs (86.02% of total). Out of all anastomoses, ostomy reversals (30.7%) had the highest percentage of HS suturing followed by right colectomies (27.5%), ileal pouch-anal anastomoses and total colectomies and proctocolectomies (23.3%), small bowel resection (17.0%), and left colectomies (5.5%). Regardless of the location of the operation, stapled and sutured anastomoses had similar outcomes measured by the rate of anastomotic leaks. Residents used significantly more SDs in the creation of anastomoses than HS suturing in the PGY3, PGY4, and PGY5 years. We also documented that attending surgeons who are older more often used HS suturing than their younger colleagues when creating IAs.

The experiences of GSRs in IA operations are heavily weighted toward the use of SDs. There are select cases, however, when HS suturing can have an advantage over stapler use in anastomosis creation. Therefore, we believe that GSRs should continue learning, perfecting, and using the both techniques.