Usefulness of staging laparoscopy for advanced gastric cancer

• DOI: 10.1007/s00595-009-4017-6
• Publication Date: 2010-01-27T05:32:10Z
• Authors: Hiroki Shimizu; Hiroshi Imamura; Katsuya Ohta; Yasuhiro Miyazaki; Tomono Kishimoto; Mutsumi Fukunaga; Hiroki Ohzato; Masayuki Tatsuta; Hiroshi Furukawa
• Keywords: Surgical oncology

The aim of this study was to clarify the usefulness of staging laparoscopy for planning the treatment strategy in patients with advanced gastric cancer.This was a retrospective study of patients with gastric cancer who underwent staging laparoscopy. The patients were divided into three groups according to the presence/absence of peritoneal metastasis (P) and positive peritoneal cytology (CY): P negative (0) CY0, P0CY positive (1), and P1CY1. The treatment strategy after staging laparoscopy was as follows: (1) surgery for the P0CY0 group, (2) surgery with neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) for the P0CY1 group, and (3) chemotherapy for the P1CY1 group. Survival was estimated by the Kaplan-Meier method and statistical differences were analyzed by the log-rank test.Thirty-four patients were included in this study: 11 in the P0CY0 group, 13 in the P0CY1 group, and 10 in the P1CY1 group. A gastrectomy was done in 11, 10, and no patients, respectively. The survival rate of the P0CY0 patients was significantly better than that of the P0CY1 or P1CY1 patients (P = 0.0106 and 0.0031, respectively).Staging laparoscopy is useful for planning the treatment strategy and estimating the prognosis of patients with advanced gastric cancer.