Laparoscopic gastrectomy with lymph node dissection for gastric cancer.

Since 1991, laparoscopic surgery has been adopted for the treatment of gastric cancer, and it has been performed worldwide, especially in Japan and Korea. We reviewed the English-language literature to clarify the current status of and problems associated with laparoscopic gastrectomy with lymph node dissection as treatment for gastric cancer. In Japan, early-stage gastric cancer (T1/T2, N0) is considered the only indication for laparoscopic gastrectomy. As yet, there is little high-level evidence based on long-term outcome supporting laparoscopic gastrectomy for cancer, but reports have provided level 3 evidence that the procedure is technically safe, and that it yields better short-term outcomes than open surgery; that is, recovery is faster, hospital stay is shorter, there is less pain, and cosmesis is better. However, investigation into the oncological outcome of laparoscopic gastrectomy as treatment for cancer is lacking. To establish laparoscopic surgery as a standard treatment for gastric cancer, multicenter randomized controlled trials to compare the short- and long-term outcomes of laparoscopic surgery versus open surgery are necessary.