Hand-assisted laparoscopic surgery in Crohn’s disease

Considering the advantages of hand-assisted laparoscopic surgery (HALS) in patients with higher BMI and complex adhesions, it has become an alternative to laparoscopic surgery for the treatment of Crohn’s disease (CD) and other colorectal disease. Several studies have reported that HALS still maintains the advantages of laparoscopic surgery and has no differences compared with traditional procedure in the clinical outcomes. According to recent relevant literatures and personal experience, we report the five-step procedure of HALS in CD in this article: incision, placing the hand-assist device, cecal mobilization, hepatic flexure mobilization, resection and anastomosis.