Intracorporeal versus extracorporeal anastomosis after laparoscopic left colectomy for splenic flexure cancer: results from a multi-institutional audit on 181 consecutive patients

Although intracorporeal anastomosis has been demonstrated to be safe and effective after right colectomy, limited data are available about its efficacy after left colectomy for colon cancer located in splenic flexure. A multi-institutional audit was designed, including 92 patients who underwent laparoscopic left colectomy with intracorporeal anastomosis (IA) compared with 89 matched patients who underwent a laparoscopic left colectomy with extracorporeal anastomosis (EA). There was no significant difference in terms of age, sex, BMI, and ASA score between the two groups. Post-surgical history and stage of disease according to AJCC/UICC TNM were also similar. IA and EA groups demonstrated similar oncologic radicality in terms of the number of lymph nodes harvested (18.5 ± 9 vs. 17.5 ± 8.4; p = 0.48). Recovery after surgery was also better in patients who underwent IA, as confirmed by the shorter time to flatus in the IA group (2.6 ± 1.1 days vs. 3.4 ± 1.2 days; p < 0.001) and higher post-operative pain expressed in the mean VAS Scale in the EA group (1.7 ± 2.1 vs. 3.5 ± 1.6; p < 0.001). Laparoscopic left colectomy with intracorporeal anastomosis was associated with a lower rate of post-operative complications (OR 6.7, 95% CI 2.2–20; p = 0.001). However, when stratifying according to Clavien classification, the difference was consistently confirmed for less severe (class I and II) complications (OR 7.6, 95% CI 2.5–23, p = 0.001) but not for class III, IV, and V complications (OR 1.8, 95% CI 0.1–16.9; p = 0.59). Our results were consistent to hypothesize that a complete laparoscopic approach could be considered a safe method to perform laparoscopic left colectomy with the advantage of a guaranteed faster recovery after surgery. Further randomized clinical trials are needed to obtain a more definitive conclusion.