Anastomotic Leakage and Value Of Indocyanine Green in Decreasing Leakage Rates

Anastomotic leakage (AL) is one of the major complications after gastrointestinal surgery. Compromised tissue perfusion at the anastomosis site increases the risk of AL. Indocyanine green (ICG) combined with fluorescent near infrared imaging has proven to be a feasible and reproducible application for real-time intraoperative quantification of the tissue perfusion and cohort studies showed reduced leakage rate. Unfortunately, these studies were not randomized. Therefore, we propose a nationwide randomized controlled trial to identify the value of ICG for AL in colorectal anastomosis.