Background: The conventional laparoscopic colorectal surgery requires four or more ports to accomplish the laparoscopic dissection, and a mini-laparotomy to remove the specimen, which is a main cause of postoperative pain and incision complications, and compromise the cosmetic results. Reduced port surgery and natural orifice specimen extraction (NOSE) surgery hold the promise to overcome these drawbacks. This study planned to compare peri-operative outcomes of patients with rectal-sigmoid cancer undergoing three-port laparoscopic anterior resection with NOSE (three-port NOSE LAR) to those of patients receiving conventional LAR.
Methods: Twenty-five patients with rectal-sigmoid cancer underwent three-port NOSE LAR between December 2018 and October 2020. For comparison, 50 patients with rectal-sigmoid cancer underwent conventional LAR in the same period were matched. The peri-operative outcomes were compared.
Results: Operating time of three-port NOSE group was slightly longer than that of conventional group (135 min vs. 121 min, p = .147). The incision length of three-port NOSE group was shorter than that of conventional group (2.9 cm vs. 7.4 cm, p = .000). Complication rates in three-port NOSE group and conventional group were similar (12.0% vs. 20.0%, p = .524). The tumor size was smaller in three-port NOSE group than the conventional group (2.1 cm vs. 3.5 cm, p = .000). Pain score was lower in three-port NOSE group than the conventional group at postoperative day 1 (1.6 vs. 3.0, p = 0.045) and day 2 (0.2 vs. 2.1, p = .003). The BIQ score was significantly higher in the three-port NOSE group compared to the conventional group (42.9 ± 3.5 vs. 38.2 ± 2.5, p = .002).
Conclusions: Three-port NOSE LAR for rectal-sigmoid cancer is feasible and provides similar peri-operative outcomes compared to conventional LAR. It reduces postoperative pain and produces better cosmesis.
Keywords: anterior resection; laparoscopic surgery; natural orifice specimen extraction; rectal-sigmoid cancer; three-port.