Laparoscopic surgery can improve long-term overall survival (OS) compared with open surgery for patients with rectal cancer, according to findings from a large meta-analysis.
The estimated 5-year OS rate for patients who underwent laparoscopic surgery was 76.2%, vs 72.7% for those who had open surgery.
"The survival benefit of laparoscopic surgery is encouraging and supports the routine use of laparoscopic surgery for adult patients with rectal cancer in the era of minimally invasive surgery," write the authors, led by Leping Li, MD, from the Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, Shandong Provincial Hospital, Shandong, China
The article was published online in JAMA Network Open.
Surgery is an essential component in treating rectal cancer, but the benefits of laparoscopic vs open surgery are not clear. Over the past 15 years, randomized clinical trials (RCTs) have shown comparable long-term outcomes for laparoscopic and open surgery. However, in most meta-analyses that assessed the evidence more broadly, researchers used an "inappropriate" method for the pooled analysis.
Li and colleagues wanted to perform their own meta-analysis to more definitively understand whether the evidence on long-term outcomes supports or opposes the use of laparoscopic surgery for rectal cancer.
In the current study, the authors conducted an individual participant data meta-analysis using time-to-event data and focused on the long-term survival outcomes after laparoscopic or open surgery for adult patients with rectal cancer.
