Long-term oncological outcomes in robotic gastrectomy versus laparoscopic gastrectomy for gastric cancer: a meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: Robotic gastrectomy (RG) has been a new technical alternative for gastric cancer. However, the long-term oncological outcomes of RG still should be further evaluated. In this meta-analysis, the long-term oncological outcomes of RG and laparoscopic gastrectomy (LG) are compared.

METHODS: Comprehensive searches from various databases are compared in February 2017 to identify that the oncological outcomes of RG and LG are evaluated in gastric cancer patients. The pooled oncological outcomes of the overall survival (OS), disease-free survival (DFS), and the recurrence rate were performed by adopting the meta-analysis to calculate the hazard ratio (HR) or the odds ratio with 95% confidence intervals (CIs).

RESULTS: Five studies that concern retrospective design and prospective data collection and involve 1614 patients were included. All the five studies evaluated OS. Two studies evaluated DFS, while four studies reported the recurrence rate or recurrence cases in RG and LG groups with the long-term follow-up. The pooled analysis showed no significant difference in OS and DFS between RG and LG, without significant between-study heterogeneity. Besides, the recurrence rate between RG and LG had no significant difference without heterogeneity.

CONCLUSIONS: RG could provide comparable long-term oncological outcomes as well as LG for the treatment of gastric cancer. OS, DFS, and the recurrence rate by the long-time follow-up of RG were comparable with LG. Generally speaking, more randomized clinical trials and a larger patient cohort with longer follow-up are still essential to further demonstrate the value of the robotic surgery for gastric cancer.