Abstract: Objective:To investigate the application value of hand-sewn esophagojejunal anastomosis (EJA) in totally laparoscopic total gastrectomy (TLTG).
Methods:The retrospective and descriptive study was conducted. The clinicopathological data of 35 patients with early or advanced upper gastric cancer who were admitted to Renji Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine between July 2018 and December 2019 were collected. There were 24 males and 11 females, aged (60±10)years, with a range of 35- 75 years. All the 35 patients underwent TLTG combined with hand-sewn EJA. Observation indicators: (1) intraoperative situations; (2) postoperative situations; (3) postoperative pathological examination; (4) follow-up and survival. Follow-up was conducted using telephone interview, outpatient examination, short message service and WeChat to detect tumor recurrence, metastasis and survival of patients up to January 2020.Measurement data with normal distribution were repressented as Mean±SD. Measurement data with skewed distribution were represented as M (range). Count data were expressed as absoulte numbers or persentages.
Results:(1) Intraoperative situations: all the 35 patients underwent TLTG combined with hand-sewn EJA successfully. The operation time, volume of intraoperative blood loss, time of hand-sewn EJA, costs of consumables used in the intraoperative resection and reconstruction, and costs of consumables used in EJA of the 35 patients were 305 minutes(range, 232-406 minutes), 94 mL(range, 50-300 mL), 37 minutes(range, 20-65 minutes), 13 674 yuan(range, 11 929-15 255 yuan) and 491 yuan(range, 223-1 044 yuan), respectively. Of the 35 patients, 4 received intraoperative blood transfusion. (2) Postoperative situations:time to first out-of-bed activity, postoperative indwelling time of gastric tube, time to initial liquid diet intake, the time to abdominal drainage tube removal and duration of postoperative hospital stay of the 35 patients were 2 days(range, 1- 3 days), 4 days(range, 2-11 days), 5 days(range, 4-12 days), 8 days(range, 5-15 days) and 9 days(range, 7-16 days), respectively. Of the 35 patients, 3 had perioperative complications. One patient had inflammation and infection in the pancreatic tail and was discharged at postoperative 16 days after conservative treatment of fasting, somatostatin to reduce the pancreatic secretion, adequate drainage, anti-infection and nutritional support. One had postoperative intestinal incomplete obstruction and was discharged at postoperative 12 days after treatment with gastrointestinal decompression and enema for relief of obstruction. One had pulmonary infection who was discharged at postoperative 9 days after symptomatic and supportive treatment. None of the 35 patients had perioperative anastomotic leakage or bleeding. Of the 35 patients, 1 was diagnosed with esophagojejunostomy stenosis at postoperative 2 months and was improved after endoscopic dilatation. The incidence of long-term anastomosis-related complications of the 35 patients was 2.9%(1/35). (3) Postoperative pathological examination: the pathological examination of the upper margin of intraoperative frozen section and postoperative paraffin section showed negative in the 35 patients. Of the 35 patients, 16 had tumor located at cardia including 4 cases with tumor involving in lower esophagus, 19 had tumor located at stomach; 21 had tumor pathological type as highly or moderately differentiated adenocarcinoma, 11 had poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma, 3 had signed-ring cell carcinoma; 14 had early gastric cancer, 21 had advanced gastric cancer; 7 had tumor invaded at mucosa lamina propria and muscularis, 7 had tumor invaded at submucosa, 1 had tumor invaded at muscularis, 1 had tumor invaded at subserosal, 17 had tumor invaded at serosal, 2 had tumor invaded at extra-serosal adipose tissue. The TNM staging of the 35 patients: 14 were in stage ⅠA , 2 in stage ⅠB, 4 in stage ⅡB, 3 in stage ⅢA, 4 in stage ⅢB and 8 in stage ⅢC. Of the 35 patients, 15 had vascular invasion and 16 had nerve invasion. The tumor diameter, the number of lymph nodes dissected and the number of positive lymph nodes of the 35 patients were 3.9 cm(range,0.6-12.0 cm), 24(range,10-40) and 2(range,0-11). (4) Follow-up and survival: all the 35 patients were followed up for 1-18 months, with a median time of 5 months. Of the 35 patients, tumor recurrence or metastasis was not found in 34 patients, and the other 1 patient was diagnosed with liver metastases of tumor at postoperative 6 months and survived with tumor.
Conclusion:Hand-sewn EJA in TLTG is safe and feasible.