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Review
. 2021 Nov 13;11(11):2099.
doi: 10.3390/diagnostics11112099.

Current Insights: The Impact of Gut Microbiota on Postoperative Complications in Visceral Surgery-A Narrative Review

Ann-Kathrin Lederer  1   2 , Sophia Chikhladze  3 , Eva Kohnert  4 , Roman Huber  1 , Alexander Müller  1
Affiliations
Review

Current Insights: The Impact of Gut Microbiota on Postoperative Complications in Visceral Surgery-A Narrative Review

Ann-Kathrin Lederer et al. Diagnostics (Basel). .

Abstract

Postoperative complications are a major problem occurring in up to 50% of patients undergoing major abdominal surgery. Occurrence of postoperative complications is associated with a significantly higher morbidity and mortality in affected patients. The most common postoperative complications are caused by an infectious genesis and include anastomotic leakage in case of gastrointestinal anastomosis and surgical site infections. Recent research highlighted the importance of gut microbiota in health and disease. It is plausible that the gut microbiota also plays a pivotal role in the development of postoperative complications. This narrative review critically summarizes results of recent research in this particular field. The review evaluates the role of gut microbiota alteration in postoperative complications, including postoperative ileus, anastomotic leakage, and surgical site infections in visceral surgery. We tried to put a special focus on a potential diagnostic value of pre- and post-operative gut microbiota sampling showing that recent data are inhomogeneous to identify a high-risk microbial profile for development of postoperative complications.

Keywords: anastomotic leakage; gut microbiome; ileus; outcome; postoperative complications; surgical site infections.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Overview of the relation between surgery and gut microbiota composition.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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