• Journal of Gastric Cancer
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.57-62
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• 2009

Purpose: The use of automatic circular staplers for gastroduodenostomy after distal gastrectomy is now widely accepted. We compared the clinical outcomes of two different methods. Materials and Methods: Between March 2005 and February 2008, 134 patients with gastric cancer underwent distal gastrectomies. Seventy-six consecutive patients received end-to-side gastroduodenostomies (ES) between March 2005 and September 2006. The remaining 58 consecutive patients received end-to-end gastroduodenostomies (EE) between November 2006 and February 2008. We analyzed the surgical outcomes between the two groups (ES versus EE) on the basis of prospectively collected data. Results: Among the clinical factors, there were no differences between the two groups. The overall complication rates were 19.7% in the ES group and 13.8% in the EE group (P=0.489). With respect to anastomosis-related complications, 2 cases had bleeding and 2 cases had stenoses in the ES group, while 2 cases in the EE group had bleeding. Re-operation was needed in the case of intraluminal bleeding in the ES group. There were no mortalities in our study. Conclusion: The two methods for gastroduodenostomy were safe and technically feasible. Although there was no statistical difference in the overall complications, including anastomosis-related complications, we demonstrated better outcomes with respect to anastomotic stenosis in the EE group.