Does ghost ileostomy have a role in the laparoscopic rectal surgery era? A randomized controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: Anastomotic leakage following anterior rectal resection is the most important and most commonly faced complication of laparoscopy and open surgery. To prevent this complication, the construction of a preventing stoma is usually adopted. It is not easy to decide whether to construct a protective stoma in patients with a medium risk of anastomotic leakage. In these patients, ghost ileostomy (GI), a pre-stage ileostomy that can be externalized and opened if needed, has proved useful. We conducted a prospective, randomized, controlled study to evaluate the advantages of GI in laparoscopic rectal resection. METHODS: All patients with surgical indications for laparoscopic rectal resection who were at medium risk for anastomotic leakage from January 2007 to January 2013 were included and were randomly divided in 2 groups. All of the patients were subjected to laparoscopic anterior rectal resection with the performance of GI (group A) or without the construction of any protective stoma (group B). The presence and severity of clinically evident postoperative anastomotic leakage and other postoperative complications and reinterventions were investigated. RESULTS: Of the 55 patients allocated to group A, 3 experienced anastomotic leakage compared with 4 in group B. The patients with GI experienced a lower severity of anastomotic leakage and shorter hospitalization compared with the patients in group B. None of the patients with GI and anastomotic leakage required laparotomy to treat the dehiscence. CONCLUSIONS: The use of GI in laparoscopic rectal resections in patients at medium risk for anastomotic leakage was useful because it allowed for the avoidance of stoma creation in all of the patients, thus reducing the number of stomas performed, improving the quality of life of the patients and preserving, in most cases, the benefits gained by laparoscopy.

Surgical management of microscopic positive resection margin after gastrectomy for gastric cancer: a systematic review of gastric R1 management.

BACKGROUND: The prognosis after a curative resection for gastric cancer is modified by the lymph node involvement, while the prognostic significance of a microscopically-positive resection margin is debated. We systematically reviewed the literature from 1998 to 2013 to describe the role of surgery in the management of gastric cancer with a R1 after gastrectomy. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The research was systematically performed on Pubmed, EMbase, Cochrane Library, CILEA Archive, BMJ Clinical Evidence and Up ToDate databases. Twelve studies were included in this review, for a total of 15,008 patients. RESULTS: The results reported in literature are inconsistent and the impact of surgical and oncological therapies is unknown. Intraoperative frozen sections should be performed to achieve a negative margin with intraoperative re-excision. CONCLUSION: A surgical re-excision of an R1 resection should be considered for patients with fewer than three disease-positive nodes because survival is more likely to be governed by positive margins than by nodal status.