[From Murphy's button to the Valtrac Ring. 100 years in search of a paradigm].

In the context of continuous development in the area of anastomotic sutures leading to exceptional results in surgical practice, the biofragmentable anastomosis ring (BAR) described in 1985 by Hardy et al. represents a breakthrough in a 100 years' search of a paradigm. The first anastomotic button created in 1892 by J.B. Murphy was at once accepted as a quick and safe method of intestinal anastomosis. In 1896 Czerny demanded the following: "The task of technology is ... to create buttons with material that is entirely or partly dissolved in the intestinal lumen." Polyglycolic acid--developed in the sixties and now in widespread use for resorbable surgical sutures--was the material to fulfill the requirements already stated in the relevant literature 100 years ago, namely in the form of Hardy's BAR, which represents a redesigned Murphy button exploiting the recent biotechnological developments of this century.