Patent ID: 8109427

Claim:
A surgical instrument for performing an end-to-end anastomosis of first and second luminal structures, comprising: a housing having an actuator attached thereto; a selectively removable loading unit attached to a distal end of said housing, the loading unit having a longitudinal axis defined therethrough, and including a distal end having an anvil portion and a plurality of elongated channels for supporting a corresponding plurality of surgical fasteners in an array-like and substantially uniform manner along a plane normal to the longitudinal axis, the surgical fasteners being simultaneously deformable upon activation of the actuator such that a distal end of each of the surgical fasteners secures each end of each luminal structure to complete the end-to-end anastomosis wherein the surgical fasteners include one end which is blunt and does not penetrate the first and second luminal structures; and wherein the loading unit includes the corresponding plurality of surgical fasteners and the elongated channels are positioned such that one distal end of the surgical fasteners penetrate at least one of the ends of one of the luminal structures.