Safety of Use of a Sheet‐Type Adhesion Barrier (Interceed®) During Liver Surgery

BACKGROUND: Adhesion barriers are increasingly used in hepatobiliary surgery. However, there has been no solid evidence yet in support of their safety. METHODS: ) and 134 patients who did not receive any adhesion barriers during hepatectomy. Propensity score (PS) adjustment was used to account for potential bias to receive Interceed. RESULTS: In the PS-adjusted population, the incidences of both global postoperative morbidities and major abdominal morbidities showed no significant difference between the Interceed group and the control group (17.9% vs. 17.6%; P = 0.948 and 7.8% vs. 9.1%; P = 0.813, respectively). Multivariate analysis showed that age + 10 years (odds ratio [OR], 1.70; 95% CI, 1.15-2.50; P = 0.007), estimated blood loss + 100 mL (OR, 1.05; 95% CI, 1.01-1.09, P = 0.009), and laparoscopic approach (OR, 0.10; 95% CI, 0.01-0.75; P = 0.026) were independent predictors for global postoperative morbidities and operation time + 1 h (OR, 1.56; 95% CI, 1.23-1.96; P < 0.001) was a risk factor for major abdominal morbidity, while no specific association between the use of Interceed and the risk of postoperative morbidity was observed. CONCLUSIONS: Use of Interceed does not increase the risk of postoperative morbidities after hepatectomy.