33rd Annual Scientific Meeting proceedings

Introduction: Foreign bodies are very common in veterinary medicine, with the gastrointestinal tract being the affected site in 16 to 50% of patients. A gastric incision is traditionally closed in 2 layers. Closure with a single full thickness continuous simple pattern is commonly used in practice. No previous report has compared the suture patterns of gastric closure in clinical situations. We hypothesized that the use of a single-layer pattern would be as safe as the traditional double-layer patterns, and would not be associated with more major complications.

Materials and methods: Dogs were randomly assigned to one of three groups for gastrotomy closure: Group 1: continuous double-layer inverting pattern; Group 2: continuous double-layer simple pattern; Group 3: continuous full thickness single-layer simple pattern.

Results: 20 dogs were included in each group (n = 60 total). All dogs included in the study were discharged from hospitalization. No difference in survival rate was found between the 3 groups at 1 month postoperatively. No major complications were encountered.

Discussion/Conclusion: The use of a single-layer suture seemed to be an effective suture pattern for gastrotomy closure. A parallel cadaveric study demonstrated that leakage pressures of these 3 suture patterns are similar.