Short-term Outcome of Laparoscopic vs Open Gastrectomy for Gastric Cancer: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Abstract

Background: Gastric cancer (GC) is a crucial cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. In Egypt, GC ranked as the 12th most common cancer. During the last two decades, laparoscopic gastrectomy (LG) has proved to be popular and effective. This study aims to compare the short-term outcomes of LG vs open gastrectomy (OG) in resectable GC patients. Patients and methods: This is a randomized controlled trial, where patients presented to Assiut university hospital with resectable GC, in the period from January 2017 to December 2019, were randomly allocated to OG (group A) or LG (group B). Results: During the study period, 46 patients were randomized: 23 patients for OG and 23 for LG. Advanced cases after exploration were excluded from both the groups ended up with a total of 36 patients (20 for OG and 16 for LG). The mean follow-up time was 5 months ranging from 40 days to 10 months. There were no statistically significant differences between the two groups in the baseline clinicopathological data. The mean operative time was longer in LG (260.6 ± 46.7 vs 191.0 ± 24.7 minutes in OG) with a p -value <0.001. The postoperative hospital stay was more in OG compared to LG (8.0 ± 4.1 vs 6.9 ± 2.6 days, p -value = 0.361). Postoperative complications were more among OG (4/20) compared to (2/16) in LG ( p -value = 0.549). Just one mortality was reported in the OG. Conclusion: For GC cases, LG shows comparable outcomes to OG in short-term results, and it is a promising minimally invasive surgery in such cases.