The effect of different endoscopic tattooing doses in laparoscopic colorectal tumor surgery

We aimed to demonstrate the intraoperative effectiveness of different doses of preoperative endoscopic tattooing in patients undergoing laparoscopic surgical treatment for colorectal cancer or tumors. According to the tattooing dose administered before laparoscopic surgery, patients were divided into 3 groups: Group 1, tattooing dose ≥ 1.0 cc (n = 35); Group 2, 0.5-<1.0 cc (n = 33); Group 3, <0.5 cc (n = 48). The groups were statistically compared in terms of clinical characteristics, surgical parameters, histopathological features, and ease of identification. A total of 116 patients were included in the study; the mean age was 63.8 (10.5) years, and most were male (68.1%). The rate of easy intraoperative identification during laparoscopic colorectal surgery was 88.7% (103/116). There were no statistically significant differences between the groups in terms of age, sex, body mass index, anesthesia score, tumor localization, operative time, tumor diameter, malignancy rate, neoadjuvant therapy, TNM and T stage, or number of resected lymph nodes (P > .05). Additionally, there were no statistically significant differences among the 3 groups regarding ease of identification and spillage of the dye into the peritoneum (P = .706 and P = .207, respectively). In laparoscopic colorectal tumor surgery, low-dose endoscopic tattooing provides similar outcomes in terms of ease of identification compared to high-dose tattooing. Low-dose tattooing is associated with lower cost and reduced risk of spillage into the peritoneum.