Observational Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Surg. Nov 27, 2021; 13(11): 1484-1496
Published online Nov 27, 2021. doi: 10.4240/wjgs.v13.i11.1484
Defecation disorders are crucial sequelae that impairs the quality of life of patients after conventional gastrectomy
Koji Nakada, Masami Ikeda, Masazumi Takahashi, Shinichi Kinami, Masashi Yoshida, Yoshikazu Uenosono, Masanori Terashima, Atsushi Oshio, Yasuhiro Kodera
Koji Nakada, Department of Laboratory Medicine, The Jikei University School of Medicine, Tokyo 105-8461, Japan
Masami Ikeda, Department of Surgery, Asama General Hospital, Saku 385-0022, Japan
Masazumi Takahashi, Division of Gastroenterological Surgery, Yokohama Municipal Citizen’s Hospital, Yokohama 240-8555, Japan
Shinichi Kinami, Department of Surgical Oncology, Kanazawa Medical School, Kanazawa 920-0293, Japan
Masashi Yoshida, Department of Surgery, International University of Health and Welfare Hospital, Tochigi 329-2763, Japan
Yoshikazu Uenosono, Department of Digestive Surgery, Imamura General Hospital, Kagoshima 890-0064, Japan
Masanori Terashima, Division of Gastric Surgery, Shizuoka Cancer Center, Shizuoka 411-8777, Japan
Atsushi Oshio, Faculty of Letters, Arts and Sciences, Waseda University, Tokyo 169-8050, Japan
Yasuhiro Kodera, Department of Gastroenterological Surgery, Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine, Nagoya 466-8550, Japan
Author contributions: Nakada K, Ikeda M, Takahashi M, Kodera Y designed the study, and collected and managed the data; Kinami S, Yoshida M, Uenosono Y, Terashima M collected and managed the data; Oshio A contributed to statistical analysis; Nakada K wrote the paper; All authors have read and approved the final version to be published.
Supported by Jikei University; and Japanese Society for Gastro-surgical Pathophysiology
Institutional review board statement: This study was approved by local ethics committees at each institution.
Informed consent statement: Written informed consent was obtained from all enrolled patients.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interests related to the publication of this study.
Data sharing statement: No additional data was available.
STROBE statement: The manuscript was revised according to the STROBE statement.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Koji Nakada, MD, PhD, Professor, Department of Laboratory Medicine, The Jikei University School of Medicine, 3-25-8, Nishishinbashi, Minato-ku, Tokyo 105-8461, Japan. nakada@jikei.ac.jp
Received: April 29, 2021
Peer-review started: April 29, 2021
First decision: June 17, 2021
Revised: June 26, 2021
Accepted: October 31, 2021
Article in press: October 31, 2021
Published online: November 27, 2021
Processing time: 211 Days and 11.4 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Symptoms of defecation disorders, such as diarrhea and constipation, are relatively modest and have not received sufficient attention among various postgastrectomy symptoms; therefore, their implication on the daily lives of patients have not been adequately investigated. We evaluated these symptoms using a nationwide multi-institutional collaborative study called the Postgastrectomy Syndrome Assessment Study. The severity of symptoms of defecation disorders were unexpectedly high and both symptoms, particularly constipation, impaired the living status and quality of life (QOL) of patients after gastrectomy; therefore, we should also pay attention and adequately treat these symptoms to improve postoperative QOL.