An original use in low colo-rectal anastomosis of the new surgical device "grasping tie".

The grasping tie is an original and mechanical tool, conceived and planned to be used in digestive surgery to do the equivalent of a purse string. Its use is conceived to make easier the mechanical anastomosis in the more difficult situations as the oesophago-jejunal or the very low colo-rectal ones, as in the example of the presented paper. A thin ribbon of nylon will be progressively tightened as a one-way running knot upon the tract of the gut, either directly or about the axis of a circular stapler. Once completed the stapler suture it will be completely extracted together with the muscle-mucosal rings, so that nothing of the ribbon remains in the patient. The use of the grasping tie is also advantageous in quickly closing the gut above and below a tumour, to a safer manipulation and to reduce the contamination of the operative field. An original and useful use of the grasping tie is demonstrated in the present paper for the surgical treatment of a low rectal cancer with preservation of the anus. Its use is that to close the distal stump of the rectum below the tumour, to take away from the pelvis the proximal stump with the tumour, and then to proceed to the mechanical anastomosis in a now wide operatory field, introducing in the anus an enteral dilator and preparing on it the definitive purse string, as illustrated.