Short- and long-term outcomes of single-port versus multiport laparoscopic radical gastrectomy for gastric cancer: a meta-analysis of propensity score-matched studies and randomized controlled trials

BACKGROUND: At present, there is no convincing evidence-based medical basis for the efficacy of single-port laparoscopic gastrectomy. To make a high-quality comparison of the short- and long-term outcomes of single-port laparoscopic gastrectomy versus multiport laparoscopic gastrectomy, we performed this meta-analysis, which only included propensity score-matched studies and randomized controlled trials comparing single-port laparoscopic gastrectomy with multiport laparoscopic gastrectomy for patients with gastric cancer. METHODS: Data were retrieved from the electronic databases PubMed, EMBASE, Medline, Cochrane Library, CNKI, Wanfang and VIP up to January 2023, and the data included the outcomes of treatment after single-port laparoscopic gastrectomy and multiport laparoscopic gastrectomy. The primary outcomes were early complications, survival rate after surgery at 1 year, and survival rate after surgery at 5 years. The secondary outcomes were number of pain medications, mean operation time, estimated blood loss, hospital mortality, time to first soft fluid diet, time to first flatus, hospital stay after surgery, and retrieved number of lymph nodes. The Jadad score and Newcastle‒Ottawa scale were used to assess the quality of the included studies. RESULTS: After screening, 9 studies were finally included, including 988 patients. The meta-analysis results showed that estimated blood loss (MD=-29.35, 95% CI: -42.95-15.75, P < 0.0001), hospital stay (MD=-0.99, 95% CI:-1.82~-0.17, P = 0.02), and number of pain medications(MD=-0.65, 95% CI:-1.07~-0.23, P = 0.002) in the single-port laparoscopic gastrectomy group were better than those in the multiport laparoscopic gastrectomy group. There is no significant difference between the single-port laparoscopic gastrectomy group and the multiport laparoscopic gastrectomy group in mean operation time(MD = 5.23,95% CI:-16.58~27.04,P = 0.64), time to first soft fluid diet(MD=-0.06,95% CI: -0.30~0.18,P = 0.63), time to first flatus(MD=-0.18,95% CI:-0.43~0.07,P = 0.16), early complication(OR = 0.73,95% CI:0.50~1.09,P = 0.12), hospital mortality(OR = 1.00,95% CI:0.09~11.16,P = 1.00), retrieved number of lymph nodes(MD=-1.15, 95% CI:-2.71~0.40, P = 0.15), survival rate after surgery 1 year(OR = 2.14,95% CI:0.50~9.07,P = 0.30), and survival rate after surgery 5 year(93.7 vs. 87.6%; p = 0.689). CONCLUSION: This meta-analysis showed that single-port laparoscopic gastrectomy is both safe and feasible for laparoscopic radical gastrectomy for gastric cancer, with similar operation times and better short-term outcomes than multiport laparoscopic gastrectomy in terms of hospital stay, postoperative pain, and estimated blood loss. There was no significant difference in long-term outcomes between single-port laparoscopic gastrectomy and multiport laparoscopic gastrectomy.