Routine Drainage of Colorectal Anastomoses: An Evidence-Based Review of the Current Literature

Table 1

Summary of the studies that favored routine drainage after colorectal anastomosis.

Studies of prodrainage	Type of study	Level of evidence^†	Level of anastomosis	Method of anastomosis	Use of diverting stoma
Peeters et al. 2005 [5]	Retrospective	VI	Colorectal	Side to end or colonic pouch anastomosis	56.6%
Qu et al. 2015 [6]	Systematic review and meta-analysis	IIa	Colorectal	Double stapled in 8 trials and handsewn or stapled in 6 trials	22.5% (4 trials)
Kawada et al. 2014 [7]	Retrospective	VI	Colorectal	Double stapled	0
Akiyoshi et al. 2011 [8]	Prospective cohort	IIb	Colorectal	Double stapled	18.5%
Rondelli et al. 2014 [9]	Systematic review and meta-analysis	IIa	Colorectal	Stapled in 2 trials and handsewn or stapled in 8 trials	43.5% (five trials)
Tsujinaka et al. 2008 [11]	Retrospective	VI	Colorectal	Stapled 88% and handsewn 12%	23.5%

† indicates levels of evidence proposed by the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (Meakins JL. Innovations in surgery: the rules of evidence. Am J Surg. 2002; 183: 399–405).