Anastomotic leak: are we closer to eliminating its occurrence?

Anastomotic leak is one of the most fretted complications in colon and rectal surgery and its occurrence carries a significant degree of morbidity and mortality for affected patients. Given the degree of harm this complication causes patients, a significant amount of work has been done in the field to identify factors associated with anastomotic leak in an effort to minimize both its occurrence and associated morbidity.