In recent years fast-track surgery has again challenged the concept of routine drainage in elective visceral surgery and thus refueled a long-standing debate. This review analyzes recent data relating to this issue for different surgical procedures. A relevant number of prospective, randomized and controlled trials with unfortunately only few patients exists only for thyroid, liver, colonic and rectal resection as well as for cholecystectomy. For these operations, no advantage for the use of drainage was noted; on the contrary, for cholecystectomy and liver resection, data indicate an increased rate of infectious complications after drainage. Therefore, routine use of drains cannot be recommended in these procedures. No recommendation can be made for esophageal,gastric or pancreatic resection as well as for appendicectomy and hernia repair due to the lack of valid data. Further multicenter trials with sufficient sample size are needed.

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2007
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