Short and Long-Term Surgical Outcomes of Laparoscopic Total Gastrectomy Compared with Open Total Gastrectomy in Gastric Cancer Patients

This study aimed to compare the efficacy of laparoscopic total gastrectomy (LTG) with that of open total gastrectomy (OTG) in terms of postoperative complications and long-term survival. We retrospectively reviewed the clinicopathological data of 560 patients, who underwent total gastrectomy between 2012 and 2016 at the National Cancer Center, Korea. Propensity-score matching (PSM) was performed to correct for discrepancies between the two groups. Matched variables included sex, age, body mass index, American Society of Anesthesiologists score, and pathological Tumor–Node–Metastasis stage. After PSM, 238 patients were included in this analysis. The rate of D2 lymph node dissection was significantly higher in the OTG group than in the LTG group. The estimated blood loss was significantly lower in the LTG group than in the OTG group. The overall complication rate was not significantly different between the two groups. There was no significant difference in the 3-year disease-free and 5-year overall survival rates between the two groups. LTG and OTG had comparable efficacies in gastric cancer patients regarding short- and long-term surgical outcomes. This study suggests that LTG could be an alternative approach to the OTG.