Routine Endoscopic Evaluation of Colorectal Anastomoses for Early Detection of Anastomotic Leakage

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Anastomotic leakage (AL) following colorectal surgery may occur in up to 20% of patients. Treatment success for AL largely depends on its timely initiation. Relatedly, early diagnosis can avoid severe consequences such as major reoperations, oncological compromise, definitive stomas and even mortality. AL presents in a variety of clinical manifestations, ranging from faecal peritonitis with sepsis to occult or with minimal symptoms. The latter can be subject to delayed diagnosis, possibly owing to clinical pathways that are mainly focussed on signs of infection in the initial postoperative period. If left untreated, a subclinical manifestation of AL can develop into chronic pelvic sepsis. AL that progresses to this chronic stage presents a whole new set of challenges including high-risk salvage surgery with poor functional outcome, and must be avoided whenever possible. The impact of chronic AL on quality of life and the related socioeconomic burden is rarely reported, but is certainly extensive. Endoscopic assessment of the anastomosis in the early postoperative period may prove beneficial, particularly for patients with minimal or absent clinical signs of infection. In a prospective cross-sectional study, the endoscopic evaluation of rectal anastomoses between days five and eight after surgery in 90 clinically unremarkable patients, led to the diagnosis of 11 (12.2%) additional ALs. This demonstrates that a pro-active diagnostic approach using endoscopy has the potential to mitigate delayed diagnosis of AL that manifests occult or with minimal symptoms. We hypothesized that a multicentre implementation of routine endoscopic assessment of the anastomosis in the early postoperative period can lead to a reduced time to diagnosis of AL. The objective of this study is to evaluate the implementation of a point-of-care digital rectoscope (LumenEye) into routine care to detect colorectal anastomotic leakage in the early postoperative period.