Effect of prolongation of operative time on the outcome of patients with gastric carcinoma.

The aim of the present study was to analyze the effect of the prolongation of operative time (OT) on the prognosis of patients with gastric carcinoma. In total, 330 patients with gastric carcinoma were enrolled. Correlation of OT with clinicopathological features including the prognosis of the patients were analyzed. Although tumors of patients for whom the OT was longer proved to be at a significantly more advanced stage of disease and univariate analysis demonstrated that the prognosis of these patients was significantly unfavorable, tumor stage was the only factor independently associated with worse prognosis for the patients based on multivariate analysis. Duration of OT was not an independent prognostic indicator. However, OT is dependent on the surgical procedure to treat tumor progression of gastric carcinoma.