Feasibility and safety of laparoscopic gastrectomy for gastric cancer A Meta analysis of five prospective randomized controlled trials / 中国组织工程研究

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: There have been some prospective, randomized, controlled studies regarding the feasibility and safety of laparoscopic gastrectomy for gastric cancer, but controversy exists.OBJECTIVE: To systemically assess the feasibility and safety of laparoscopic gastrectomy for gastric cancer.METHODS: A computer-based online research of prospective, randomized, controlled studies addressing laparoscopic gastrectomy versus open gastrectomy published between January 1994 and December 2009 was performed in PubMed, Ovid Medline, Web of Knowledge, EMbase, Chinese Journal Full-text Database and Wanfang Database. Meta analysis of acquired data was performed through the use of RevMan 5.0 software. The inverse variance method was used to test the significance of continous data, while the Mantel-Haenszel method was used for dichotomous data. The chi-square test was used for evaluation of data heterogeneity. Homogenous data was calculated using the fixed effect model, and heterogeneous data was calculated using freedom model. Statistical data was expressed as 95% confidence interval. Funnel plot was used for sensitivity analysis to show potential publication bias.RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Five papers that corresponded to inclusion criteria were included in this study. Among 326 cases included, 164 underwent laparoscopic gastrectomy and 162 received open gastrectomy. Meta analysis revealed that laparoscopic gastrectomy took longer operating time and removed fewer lymph nodes than open gastrectomy (both P ＜ 0.01), but for early-stage gastric cancer, laparoscopic gastrectomy was superior to open gastrectomy in terms of blood loss and hospital stay (P ＜ 0.01). But there was no significant difference in terms of time to resumption of oral intake, postoperative complications,postoperative morbidity rate, and tumor recurrence. Sensitive analysis demonstrated that publication bias existed in all indices to different extents with the exception of lymph node. The five papers adopted two different modes to remove lymph nodes, so subgroup analysis was also used. Results showed that for D1 lymph node dissection, laparoscopic gastrectomy took significantly reduced blood loss than open gastrectomy. All these findings indicate that laparoscopic gastrectomy for early stage gastric cancer is feasible and safe.