Value of Staging Laparoscopy in Gastrointestinal Tumors

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Department of General Surgery, Damietta Faculty of Medicine, Al-Azhar University, Damietta, Egypt

Abstract

Background: Many patients with gastrointestinal (GIT) cancer have locally advanced or metastatic disease. Staging laparoscopy can support more accurate staging of gastrointestinal cancer by guiding the most appropriate treatment and avoiding morbidity associated with non-therapeutic laparotomy.   
Aim of the Work: The aim of the current study was to investigate the value of staging laparoscopy by assessing the avoidable surgery rate in gastrointestinal cancer patients who underwent surgery with curative intent.
Patients and Methods: A randomized prospective study included patients, whom had gastro-intestinal tumor already diagnosed either by tissue histopathology or radiological study. Staging laparoscopy was done, and operable tumors compared to non-operable ones.
Results: This study was conducted on 28 patents with GIT tumors who were underwent staging laparoscopy, most of them were males (89.3%) with the mean age 52±8 years and mean of their weight is 56±6 kg. About 42.9% of tumors involved in our study had local invasion, 25% had multiple LN, 7.14% had malignant ascites, 10.7% had peritoneal deposit, 25% had stage N1-3 and 17.8% had M1 stage by staging laparoscopy. There is no statistically significant difference between operable and non-operable cases as regards location of the tumor and the imaging done.
Conclusion: Laparoscopic staging may help with more precise staging of digestive malignancies, providing recommendations for the best course of treatment and preventing the morbidity linked to unnecessary laparotomies. The process makes it possible to examine intra-abdominal organs up close and provides a way to collect biopsy samples and aspiration cytology data.

Keywords

Main Subjects