Advantages of robotic gastrectomy for overweight patients with gastric cancer: a comparison study of robotic gastrectomy and conventional laparoscopic gastrectomy

PurposeA high body mass index (BMI) generally increases the risk of postoperative complications because of the intraperitoneal adipose tissue. Robotic gastrectomy (RG) decreases the surgical difficulty of conventional laparoscopic gastrectomy (LG) for these patients. We conducted the present study to identify the advantages of RG over LG for overweight patients.MethodsWe reviewed clinical data on patients who underwent either LG or RG at the National Cancer Center Hospital East between January, 2014 and May, 2022.ResultsThe 1298 patients eligible patients were divided into a non-overweight cohort (n = 996) (LG, n = 818; RG, n = 178) and an overweight cohort (n = 302) (LG, n = 250; RG, n = 52) according to a BMI cut-off of 25 kg/m(2). In the overweight cohort, the RG group had a lower incidence of grade >= III postoperative complications (0.0 vs. 8.8%, p = 0.01) and grade >= II postoperative complications (11.5 vs. 22.0%, p = 0.12) than the LG group. Multivariate analysis identified that RG was significantly associated with a lower incidence of grade >= II postoperative complications in the overweight cohort (odds ratio, 0.33; 95% confidence interval, 0.12-0.87; p = 0.02).ConclusionsRG may reduce the risk of postoperative complications, compared with conventional LG, in overweight patients.