Published online Dec 15, 2019. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v11.i12.1161
Peer-review started: March 26, 2019
First decision: July 31, 2019
Revised: September 3, 2019
Accepted: October 3, 2019
Article in press: October 3, 2019
Published online: December 15, 2019
Processing time: 260 Days and 12.7 Hours
Gastric outlet obstruction (GOO) is a common complication during gastric cancer treatment. Different treatment modalities have been employed including endoscopic stent placement, surgical resection, and surgical bypass procedures. Surgical bypass may have better results when life expectancy is larger than 2 mo. It may be performed with a simple gastrojejunostomy (GJ) or with the addition of partial gastric partitioning (GP).
GJ has been traditionally performed as bypass procedure for GOO. However, delayed gastric emptying with impaired food ingestion may occur in up to 26% of cases. To overcome this setback, GP has been employed. The partitioning creates two separated gastric chambers that may improve gastric emptying, decrease tumor bleeding, and improve survival.
We compared the surgical results of GJ and GP for the treatment of GOO in patients with unresectable distal gastric cancer.
We performed a retrospective analysis of 60 patients submitted to GJ and GP between 2009 and 2018. Clinicopathological characteristics and surgical outcomes were compared.
GP was performed in 30 patients and conventional GJ in the other 30 patients. Baseline clinicopathological characteristics were similar between groups, with the exception of worse performance status in GP patients. Surgical results related to postoperative complications and surgical mortality did not differ between groups. The median OS was 7 and 8.4 mo for GP and GJ groups, respectively (P = 0.610). The oral acceptance of soft solids (GOOS 2) and low residue or full diet (GOOS 3) were reached by 28 (93.3%) GP patients and 22 (75.9%) GJ patients (P = 0.080). After multivariate analysis, acceptance of soft solids and low residue or full diet was the main prognostic factors for survival despite the surgical procedure performed (HR: 8.90, 95%CI: 3.38-23.43, P < 0.001).
GP is a safe and effective procedure to treat GOO. Compared to GJ, it provides similar early and late outcomes with a trend to better solid diet acceptance by the patients.
After this initial experience using GP, a prospective trial was initiated and currently no patient has been submitted to any procedure for the treatment of GOO outside the protocol. The study is ongoing, recruiting patients, and is expected to be completed within the next year (ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT02064803).