Dear Editor,
We read with great interest the article titled “Comparison of Clinical Outcomes Between Laparoscopic-Assisted and Minilaparotomy Approaches for Colon Cancer.” by Liu Z, et al. [1] In this article, authors are comparing outcomes of minilaparotomy and laparoscopy for colon cancer. We think that this study should have included another arm constituting patients who had regular laparotomy regardless of the length of incision. This would give us an idea whether these two “minimal invasive” techniques have a superior oncological outcomes than open colectomy. We also would like to ask the authors what the point was in comparing minilaparotomy but not open technique with laparoscopy as other studies did [2]. This further raises the question whether it is worthwhile to sacrifice better oncological outcomes for the sake of cosmesis or shortened “mean time to first bowel movement”.
References
Liu Z, Zhou T, Yang G, Zhang G. Comparison of clinical outcomes between laparoscopic-assisted and minilaparotomy approaches for colon cancer. J Gastrointest Cancer. 2017 Feb 3; doi:10.1007/s12029-017-9923-z.
Vennix S, Pelzers L, Bouvy N, Beets GL, Pierie JP, Wiggers T, Breukink S. Laparoscopic versus open total mesorectal excision for rectal cancer. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2014;4:CD005200. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD005200.pub3.
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Yildiz, B., Tez, M. Which Is Important: Incision Length or Oncological Outcome?. J Gastrointest Canc 48, 217 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12029-017-9929-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12029-017-9929-6