Totally laparoscopic gastrectomy with various types of intracorporeal anastomosis using laparoscopic linear staplers: preliminary experience

We analyzed our preliminary clinical data for totally laparoscopic gastrectomy (TLG) in order to evaluate its effectiveness in terms of minimal invasiveness, technical feasibility, and safety.

Forty-five consecutive patients who underwent TLG in our institution between June 2004 and February 2006 were enrolled in this study. There were 26 men and 19 women, with a mean age of 58.8 years and a mean body mass index (BMI) of 23.2. In all cases, only laparoscopic linear staplers were used for intracorporeal anastomosis.

The reasons that gastrectomy was performed were adenocarcinoma in 41 cases, benign disease in three cases and gastrointestinal stromal tumor in one case, and the types of surgery were distal gastrectomy (40), total gastrectomy (four) and pylorus-preserving gastrectomy (one). Among the distal gastrectomies, Billroth I (25) was the most frequent procedure, followed by uncut Roux-en-Y gastrojejunostomy (14) and Billroth II (one), respectively. The mean operation time was 314 minutes, the mean anastomotic time was 41 minutes, the mean number of staples used was eight, and the mean estimated blood loss was 150 ml. There was no case of conversion to an open procedure. The first flatus was observed at 2.9 days, and liquid diet was started at 3.7 days. The mean number of postoperative analgesic use, except for patient-controlled analgesia (PCA), was 1.4 times, and the mean postoperative hospital stay was 11 days. Postoperative complication occurred in six patients (13.3 %), but no postoperative mortality occurred. There were two cases of delayed gastric empting and one case of anastomotic leakage, anastomotic stenosis, intraabdominal bleeding, and ventral hernia each. All of the patients recovered well with conservative or surgical management.

TLG with intracorporeal anastomosis using laparoscopic linear staplers was safe and feasible, and we were able to obtain acceptable surgical outcomes in terms of minimal invasiveness.