Abstract
Background: The short-term and long-term outcomes of laparoscopic-assisted distal gastrectomy (LADG) and totally laparoscopic distal gastrectomy (TLDG) have been subject to controversy with various reconstruction techniques of Billroth-I, Billroth-II, Roux-en-Y, and Uncut. This study aims to compare the short-term and long-term outcomes of LADG and TLDG as well as the outcomes of different anastomoses. Methods: This study enrolled patients with gastric cancer at the First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University (NMUH) between 2017 and 2021. Postoperative complications were classified according to the Clavien-Dindo grade. Exclusion criteria included metachronous and synchronous malignancy and palliative surgery. The Kaplan-Meier analysis was applied to assess 5-year prognosis between two groups. Results: This study included 1221 cases with an overall complication rate of 17.37% for LADG, which was significantly higher than TLDG's 10.72%. The incidence of anastomosis-related complications was 4.79% for LADG and 1.13% lower for TLDG. LADG and TLDG did not show significant difference for Grade III-V complications and resected lymph nodes. The postoperative stay was shorter for TLDG than LADG, and R-Y had a longer postoperative stay than B-II and Uncut after combining LADG and TLDG. The operation time was shorter in TLDG cases than that in LADG cases. The 5-year OS of the TLDG group was not significantly better than that of the LADG group. Conclusion: TLDG is superior in overall complication rate, anastomosis-related complication rate, postoperative stay and operation time to LADG. No difference of OS was observed between LADG and TLDG. Four anastomoses had no convincing evidence of being superior in complications rates, post-op stay, and harvested lymph nodes to each other.