[How safe is laparoscopic colon surgery?].

Like any new technique, laparoscopic colon surgery must display results of the same or even better quality than established methods. In this hospital every laparoscopic colon operation has been registered since 1993. Patients were informed orally or in writing that the laparoscopic procedure is a new surgical technique and that, in particular, long term results in colon carcinoma are lacking. Patients who did not undergo the laparoscopic method were those who did not agree to this type of surgery, had tumor infiltrations without extensive liver metastases, or tumor sizes where laparotomy to retrieve the specimen is not much smaller than the open surgery incision. All operations without exception were performed by two laparoscopically skilled abdominal surgeons. We used four 12 mm Troicarts placed in a diamond position, the criteria for mobilization and resection strictly following those of open surgery. In rectosigmoid resection the specimens were extracted suprapubically, with simultaneous implantation of the anvil, in the other cases at appropriate sites. The anastomoses were created either by the double stapling technique or with a single layer running suture. 88 patients underwent operation. The change to open surgery was 11%. The reasons for the change were chiefly inflamed, bleeding diverticulitis tumor, carcinoma infiltrations and, in one case, bleeding. The anastomosis failure rate of the descendorectostomy, and in all laparoscopic colon operations, was 4% and compares favourably with the literature. This was also true of stenosis incidence. The wound infection rate is on the whole the same as for open surgery. The complication in the descendorectostomy is reduced by half in the laparoscopic procedure.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)