Single-layer anastomosis in the large bowel: ten years' experience.

Satisfactory experience with single-layer colorectal anastomosis during 1969-74 led to an analysis of the results of single-layer large bowel anastomosis during the subsequent years 1975-79. This technique has continued to be associated with a low incidence of anastomotic failure, but anastomotic integrity also depends on rigorous attitudes to bowel preparation, to bacterial contamination and to the avoidance of anastomosis when the risk of anastomotic failure is high.