Comparison of hand-sewn and stapled anastomoses in surgeries of gastrointestinal tumors based on clinical practice of China

There is a lack of studies comparing stapled suturing and hand-sewn suturing in the surgeries of gastrointestinal tumors based on the clinical practice of Chinese surgeons. Data were retrospectively collected from 499 patients who underwent surgery to remove gastrointestinal tumors from January 2008 to December 2009. The patients were divided into two groups according to the method of digestive tract reconstruction: 296 patients received stapled suturing and 203 patients received hand-sewn suturing. The operation time, postoperative hospital stay, postoperative recovery and complications of the patients were evaluated and compared between the two groups. The stapling procedure took shorter operative time compared to the hand-sewn procedure for gastric carcinoma, colorectal cancer and esophageal carcinoma (P 0.05). Patients receiving stapled suturing also showed shorter recovery for gastric cancer, colorectal cancer, and shorter time to recovery of normal gastrocolorectal motility compared with patients in the hand-sewn group (P 0.05). We also found that the stapled procedure showed a lower incidence of anastomotic leakage, anastomotic hemorrhage and stump leakage in treating colorectal cancer or gastric carcinoma compared with the hand-sewn procedure (P