Integrity of colorectal anastomosis: a review of technological assets

Colon and rectal cancer are increasingly common and regularly require surgical excision of the malignant tissue and joining together the two ends of the gastrointestinal track. The latter part of the operation is called anastomosis. A postoperative leakage where the anastomosis was fashioned is a not uncommon condition with very serious consequences. Several studies report technological advances aiming to prevent or to assess the risk of a leakage, or to heal a leakage once it has been detected. The authors also propose a new methodology to detect leakages during the operation. However, there is still a lack of a systematic and reliable procedure to entirely solve the leakage problem. The aim of this paper is to review the technology associated with the prevention, the detection and the treatment of an anastomotic leakage.