Small bowel obstruction after colon cancer surgery: does the laparoscopic approach mitigate risk?

Jensen et al. present a thoughtful study exploring the incidence and outcomes of laparoscopic surgery for colon cancer. A national database, the Danish Colorectal Cancer Group database, was utilized over a 7-year period, to compare outcomes of open and laparoscopic colon cancer surgery in 8,601 patients, with a median follow up of 9.6 and 7.0 years, respectively. The primary endpoint of this study was operations for small bowel obstruction at any time after the first 30 days postoperatively and the secondary endpoint was mortality.