To cut or not to cut? Extended mesenteric excision during intestinal resection does not impact the postoperative recurrence nor the postoperative complications in Crohn's disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: The mesentery might be involved in the pathogenesis of Crohn's disease (CD). As a result of scarce and conflicting data, it is debatable whether removal during intestinal resections could influence postsurgical outcome. We aimed to investigate the association between the extent of mesenteric excision during intestinal resections and postoperative complications and recurrence.

Methods: We conducted a systematic search in five databases on 29 July 2024 for studies reporting outcomes in patients with CD who underwent intestinal resections with extended mesenteric excision (EME) compared with limited mesenteric excision (LME). Pooled odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated using the random-effects model. We assessed the risk of bias using the ROBINS-I and RoB2 tool and evaluated the certainty of evidence according to the GRADE Working Group recommendations.

Results: We retrieved data from six studies, covering 4590 patients. The pooled data showed no significant difference between EME and LME patients regarding surgical recurrence (OR 0.3; 95% CI 0.02-3.73; p = 0.176), overall postoperative complications (OR 0.78; 95% CI 0.33-1.82, p = 0.329), anastomotic leak (OR 0.76, 95% CI 0.09-6.85, p = 0.722), surgical site infection (OR 0.84, 95% CI 0.3-2.36, p = 0.539), reoperation rate (OR 1.09, 95% CI 0.33-3.58, p = 0.783), or hospitalization (MD - 0.33 (95% CI - 1.8 to 1.15, p = 0.53). Individual studies reported similar results regarding 6 months follow-up endoscopic recurrence. The certainty of evidence was very low and low, respectively.

Conclusion: Extended mesenteric excision is not statistically associated with improved postoperative complications or postoperative recurrence. Results should be interpreted cautiously because of the small number of studies; hence, randomized, long-term, controlled trials are needed.