| Objective:A systematic review and meta-analysis of present literature was performed to evaluate the effects of combined thoracoscopic-laparoscopic esophagectomy (TLE) versus open esophagectomy (OE) on outcome. Methods:Eligible studies were identified from several electronic databases and through a cross-reference search including Medline, Embase, OVID, Cochrane Library, Springerlink, CNKI, WanFangData and VIP from establishment to March2013. We screened the retrieved literature according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria and performed a Meta-analysis with the software RevMan5.2after identification of the relevant data. Results:A total of1448patients from14studies were included for the analysis, including735patients who underwent TLE and713patients who underwent OE. TLE was associated with fewer blood loss, fewer respiratory complications and shorter lengths of hospital stay. However, TLE had longer operating time. There was no significant difference in anastomotic leak, number of lymph node harvested (P>0.05) and other observational indexes between the two groups. Conclusion: This showed that TLE for esophageal cancer offers results as good as or better than those with open esophagectomy. TLE has advantage in reducing perioperative complications and the hospital length of stay. In the future, TLE may be applied as a conventional treatment in esophageal cancer surgery. |
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