• J Biert, J Hoogenhout, T Wobbes, and T Hendriks.
• Department of Surgery, University Hospital Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
• Radiat. Res. 1997 Mar 1; 147 (3): 362-8.

AbstractPreoperative radiotherapy as an adjunct to surgery for rectal carcinoma is generally thought to impair the healing of colorectal anastomoses. To delineate the presumed hazards of preoperative irradiation, we investigated this effect in a new model where, in contrast to experiments reported so far, anastomoses were constructed using normal tissue for the proximal limb and irradiated tissue for the distal limb. A group of 120 male Wistar rats, divided randomly into 12 groups of 10 each, were used. In 60 animals, a colonic segment of 2.2 cm was irradiated with a single dose of 25 Gy X rays administered 28 or 5 days or 3 or 1 day(s) before colonic resection. For each experimental group, a control group was included which was sham-irradiated on the same preoperative day. The animals were sacrificed on the third or the seventh postoperative day, and healing of the anastomosis was evaluated by measurement of bursting pressure, breaking strength and hydroxyproline concentration and content. Comparison between each experimental group and its control group showed that preoperative irradiation did not reduce the strength of the anastomoses. Also, the concentration and content of hydroxyproline in the tissue of the anastomoses were unchanged. These data indicate that construction of a colonic anastomosis consisting of one irradiated bowel end in rats is not by definition detrimental to the development of early wound strength.

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