Seigo Kitano, Masafumi Inomata, Junki Mizusawa, Hiroshi Katayama, Masahiko Watanabe, Seiichiro Yamamoto, Masaaki Ito, Shuji Saito, Shoichi Fujii, Fumio Konishi, Yoshihisa Saida, Hirotoshi Hasegawa, Tomonori Akagi, Kenichi Sugihara, Takashi Yamaguchi, Tadahiko Masaki, Yosuke Fukunaga, Kohei Murata, Masazumi Okajima, Yoshihiro Moriya, Yasuhiro Shimada
BACKGROUND: Although benefits of laparoscopic surgery compared with open surgery have been suggested, the long-term survival of patients undergoing laparoscopic surgery for colon cancer requiring Japanese D3 dissection remains unclear. We did a randomised controlled trial to establish non-inferiority of laparoscopic surgery to open surgery. METHODS: We did an open-label, multi-institutional, randomised, two-arm phase 3 trial in 30 hospitals in Japan. Patients aged 20-75 years who had histologically proven colon cancer; tumours located in the caecum or ascending, sigmoid, or rectosigmoid colon; T3 or deeper lesions without involvement of other organs, node stages N0-2, and metastasis stage M0; and tumour size of 8 cm or smaller were included...
April 2017: Lancet. Gastroenterology & Hepatology