Novel electrode for real-time, early detection of anastomotic leak
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Novel gold electrode for real-time, early detection of anastomotic leakage following colorectal surgery
IRAS ID
245287
Contact name
David Jayne
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Leeds
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 1 months, 8 days
Research summary
People with bowel cancer or inflammatory bowel disease often require surgery to remove part of the diseased bowel and the two ends of the healthy bowel are joined together. The bowel join sometimes does not heal, resulting in a leak, which can make the patient seriously unwell or result in death. Leakage is often difficult to diagnose, and detection can be delayed.
This research involves testing a novel electronic probe that can detect changes in pH which may be important in the detection of a leakage when placed near the join. The study will be a laboratory based project carried out on intestinal fluid samples from patients at St James’s University Hospital, Leeds. This intestinal fluid is known as "ileostomy or colostomy effluent" and will be collected from consenting patients who have undergone emergency or elective surgery with formation of either a permanent or temporary stoma. It will be useful to collect both ileostomy and colostomy fluid to compare results and cover both small bowel and large bowel leaks. This fluid will be collected in the post-operative period of their hospital stay when the participants are recovering and being trained using their stoma by the stoma care team. This fluid is normally discarded and it is non-invasive and painless to collect. Collection of this fluid will not alter or influence any aspect of patient care or recovery. These experiments will help us to calibrate the probe and provide initial data to inform the design of a future animal model study.
REC name
London - Surrey Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
18/LO/0850
Date of REC Opinion
24 May 2018
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion