Comparison of Clinical Efficacy Between Laparoscopic and Open Distal Gastrectomy in the Treatment of Gastric Carcinoma: A Meta-Analysis

Objectives: The purpose of this article was to systematically evaluate the clinical efficacy of laparoscopy-assisted distal gastrectomy (LDG) and open distal gastrectomy (ODG) in the treatment of gastric carcinoma (GC). Methods: PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, CNKI, and Wanfang databases were systematically searched for relevant articles on surgical treatment of GC published from 2010 to 2020. GC patients in the treatment group received LDG, whereas those in the control group received ODG. The evaluation criteria of these two surgical methods included operation time, intraoperative blood loss, postoperative first exhaust time, number of dissected lymph nodes, postoperative hospital stay, and incidence of complications. Results: A total of 18 studies, with 2102 patients, which met the criteria were included in this meta-analysis. The analysis results showed that in comparison with the control group, both the incidence rate of complications (odds ratio = 0.31, 95% confidence interval, CI [0.23 to 0.41]) and intraoperative blood loss (standardized mean difference, SMD = -2.72, 95% CI [-3.43 to -2.00]) were lower in the treatment group. In addition, in comparison with the control group, LDG led to an increase in the number of dissected lymph nodes (SMD = 0.08, 95% CI [-1.10 to 0.25], P = .403) and associated with shorter hospital stay (SMD = -1.42, 95% CI [-1.90 to -0.94]) and earlier postoperative first exhaust time (SMD = -2.12, 95% CI [-2.86 to -1.38]). Conclusion: LDG can significantly reduce the incidence of complications of GC, intraoperative blood loss, postoperative exhaust time, and hospital stay, whereas increase the number of lymph node dissection. Therefore, LDG is worthy of clinical application.