Tissue adhesives and intestinal anastomosis.

This article presents a review of the literature concerning the employment of tissue adhesives in the production of intestinal anastomoses. The fibrin adhesive is the tissue adhesive of choice in as much as it is physiological does not possess histotoxicity or cause allergic reactions. Fibrin adhesive sealing of a conventional sutured anastomosis might improve this anastomosis as it reduced the postoperative mortality-rate significantly in a prospective study with a retrospectively matched control group comparing sealing and no sealing, but prospective, randomized trials are lacking. Finally a cyanoacrylate intestinal anastomosis has proved obsolete as in experimental trials it has proved inferior to the conventional anastomosis.