Sutureless end-to-end bowel anastomosis in rabbit using low-power CO(2) laser.

The use of laser energy to weld biological tissues and produce sutureless anasto mosis has its advantages over conventional silk-sutured anastomosis since it was reported in small vessels[1] and fallopian tubes[2], in the late 1970s. Since then, more investigators have welded a larger variety of tissues[3-13] and have expanded its application to welding trials of ent ertomies of rabbit and rat small intestine[14-17]. Sauer et al[18] reported results from Nd: YAG laser in reconstruction of end-to-end wel ding in rabbit small intestine. Recently, controlled temperature during YAG and argon laser-assisted welding of entertomies of rabbit and rat was implemented to eliminate exponential increases in the rate of denaturation associated with rapidly increasing temperature[19,20]. Yet there was no report of sutureless end-to-end bowel anastomosis using low-power CO2 laser. This is a repor t of a circumferential end-to-end laser welding bowel anastomosis in rabbit by using 3 different CO2 laser powers to explore the feasibility of CO2 laser welding of a circumferential intestinal tissue and to determine the optimal la ser-welding parameter. Then the appropriate CO2 laser power was chosen to weld bowels in rabbit and its long-term healing effect was evaluated.