Purpose: The purpose of the current meta-analysis is to analyze whether extended intraoperative peritoneal lavage (EIPL) can bring benefit on short-term outcomes or survival for patients undergoing curative gastrectomy for gastric cancer.
Methods: The PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane Library databases were searched from inception to May 3, 2021, to find eligible studies. Postoperative complications, overall survival (OS), disease-free survival (DFS), and peritoneal recurrence-free survival (PRFS) were compared between EIPL group and No EIPL group.
Results: A total of five randomized controlled trials with 1,790 patients were included in the current meta-analysis. No difference was found in baseline information (p > 0.05). After pooling up the data of overall postoperative complications, no significant difference was found between EIPL group and No EIPL group (OR = 0.88, 95% CI = 0.51 to 1.53, P = 0.65). Furthermore, there was no significant difference between EIPL group and No EIPL group in terms of OS (HR = 0.77, 95% CI = 0.36 to 1.64, P = 0.49), DFS (HR = 0.97, 95% CI = 0.71 to 1.33, P = 0.87), and PRFS (HR = 1.03, 95% CI = 0.74 to 1.43, P = 0.86). In terms of subgroup analysis of OS, no significant difference was found as well (HR = 1.05, 95% CI = 0.82 to 1.34, P = 0.69).
Conclusions: EIPL did not bring benefit in terms of short-term outcomes or survival. Therefore, EIPL is not recommended for patients undergoing curative gastrectomy for gastric cancer.
Keywords: extended intraoperative peritoneal lavage; gastric cancer; meta-analysis; outcomes; overall survival.
Copyright © 2021 Tao, Liu, Cheng, Kang, Zhang, Yuan, Zhang and Peng.