Feasibility of Use of Indocyanine Green in Pediatric Colorectal Surgery
Status:
Recruiting
Trial end date:
2022-07-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Hirschsprung's Disease (HD) and anorectal malformations (ARM) are both paediatric diseases of
the colon and rectum. Both of these conditions require surgery in order to correct them,
frequently needing sections of the bowel to be removed. Some complications of removing parts
of the bowel include forming a stricture (a narrowing of the place where the bowel is
reattached), and leak from the join. These can be devastating complications, and can
significantly impact a patient's quality of life. Indocyanine green (ICG) is a medication
that binds to blood vessels and can be visualized using special cameras in the operating
room. Once it binds, it "lights up" green on this equipment. This lends the advantage of
being able to better see which parts of the bowel get good blood flow. The theory is that
good blood flow can reduce the risks of previously mentioned complications. This has been
shown to be true in a variety of bowel surgeries in adults. ICG has also been shown to be
safe in children. Given that HD and ARM are both relatively rare conditions (~1/5000 live
births), research in this area needs to be strategic. The investigators want to ensure that
the investigators can recruit enough patients to the study using this protocol such that if
this were to be scaled up to a multi-centre trial in the future, the investigators could
demonstrate feasibility. The investigators will collect data both on the feasibility of
recruitment as the primary outcome and secondary outcomes including stricture, leak, length
of stay in hospital, and return to hospital.