| Background We have performed robotic gastrectomy for early gastric cancer since 2015. We here present short-term outcomes of these patients as compared with those with conventional laparoscopic gastrectomy.Methods Nineteen patients who underwent robotic gastrectomy and 53 patients who underwent conventional laparoscopic gastrectomy for cT1 gastric cancer were analyzed. Short-term outcomes including operation time, blood loss, postoperative hospital stay, and complication rate were analyzed between the groups. Results Patients' backgrounds were similar between the groups. Total gastrectomy and distal gastrectomy were performed in 2 and 17 patients in the robotic group, and 9 and 45 patients in the conventional group, respectively. Although operation time was significantly longer in the robotic group than in the conventional group (364-365 min vs 293-294 min, p<0.001), blood loss was significantly less (38 ml vs 50 ml, p=0.041), the number of harvested lymph nodes was significantly large (39 vs 24, p=0.004), and length of postoperative hospital stay was significantly shorter (7 days vs 9 days, p=0.002) in the robotic group than in the conventional group. No patients in the robotic group suffered from postoperative complications graded as Clavien-Dindo classification of II or more, whereas 4 patients (7%) in the conventional group did.Conclusions Although robotic gastrectomy takes longer operation time, it may reduce postoperative invasiveness including complications without impairing oncological safety. |
