Background:

The intestinal anastomotic leakage is the most feared surgical complication of a digestive surgery and is associated with a significant increase of morbidity, mortality and hospital stay.

Objective:

Analyze the risk factors to the intestinal anastomotic leakage in elective surgery.

Method:

Observational and retrospective study in which we include patients with intestinal anastomosis, in elective surgery at the second level hospital from January 2007 to January 2017.

Results:

64 patients were included in the study, in which 7 presented anastomotic leakage. The statistically significant risk factors associated with anastomotic leakage were, cocaine use (p = 0.030), neoplasia as a primary pathology (p = 0.008), neoadjuvant treatment for neoplasia (p = 0.003), and end-to-end anastomosis (p = 0.037). Patients with a leakage had a longer hospital stay and a mortality of 14.3%.

Conclusions:

The risk factors associated with the presence of anastomotic leakage found in this study are consistent with the reported worldwide literature. However, in our results, it is worth highlighting the use of cocaine as a risk factor, with statistical significance.