Study clears keyhole cancer surgery
A decade-long study comparing conventional colon cancer surgery with “keyhole” surgery found identical success rates, disproving fears that tumours would be more likely to return if surgeons did not open up the patient’s belly for a full view.
In conventional surgery, doctors remove a cancerous colon segment through an eight-inch cut down the abdomen.
In keyhole, or laparoscopic, surgery, they operate with a laparoscope, or tiny video camera, and miniaturised surgical instruments that are inserted through half-inch incisions.
The biggest comparison of the two procedures to date, involving 48 US and Canadian hospitals, found the same rates of survival, tumour recurrence and surgical complications.
In addition, patients who had laparoscopic surgery had less pain and less time in the hospital.
Experts predicted the results will end the virtual moratorium on such surgery that began in 1994 because of some evidence that tumours returned in up to 21% of patients getting laparoscopic procedures – much more frequently than with open surgery.
The study was funded by the National Cancer Institute and published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
“Now we can say it’s safe, it’s effective and it’s beneficial for patients with colon cancer,” said lead researcher Dr Heidi Nelson, chairwoman of colon and rectal surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. “Patients recovered faster with fewer days in the hospital and fewer days on painkillers.”
