[The position of gastrointestinal suture technique. Advances through mechanical suture methods (author's transl)].

At the present time various materials and methods of manually suturing the gastrointestinal tract are used in parallel. While these methods satisfy basic standards, there is scarcely any detectable difference in the results. Further development in manual suturing with reference to security from failure and reduction of the expenditure of time is unforeseeable. Adhesive methods cannot achieve any importance in the gastrointestinal tract. Presently only the fully mechanical suture methods described at the end of the sixties show promise of possible future development in the gastrointestinal tract. They are suitable for as much as 80% of plastic gastrointestinal operations, but still need statistical comparison of results.