Pre-operative laparoscopic staging of gastric cancer in patients who are candidates for neo-adjuvant chemotherapy: A Cross Sectional Study

: Objective The aim of this study is to evaluate the laparoscopic method in gastric cancer staging before surgery in patients undergoing Neo-adjuvant chemotherapy. Methods This was a cross-sectional study on patients with T3-T4 and node positive non-metastatic gastric adenocarcinoma who was candidates for neo-adjuvant chemotherapy. The patients were excluded from the study when they were not in the condition to continue the study. All eligible patients underwent metastases work up by abdominal, pelvic and chest CT scans and then received neo-adjuvant chemotherapy. Pre-operative laparoscopy was performed before definitive surgery. The collected data was analyzed using SPSS software. The statistical significance, sensitivity, specificity and predictive values were calculated from this data. Results In this study, out of 50 patients, 26 (52%) were male. The mean age of the patients was 62.44 ± 12.136 years. Most tumors were located in one-third distal of stomach (21 patients, 42%). The accuracy of the laparoscopic method, to determine the degree of involvement of the lymph nodes, revealed that the method had a sensitivity of 84%, a specificity of 47.62%, a positive likelihood ratio (PLR) of 1.6, a negative likelihood ratio (NLR) of 0.33%, a positive predictive value of 65.62% and a negative predictive value of 71.43%. The accuracy of the laparoscopic method, regarding determining the presence or absence of metastasis, revealed that the method had a sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and a negative predictive value of 100%. Conclusion Based on the evidence of this study, and other studies in this field, it seems that the use of a step-by-step combination methods in gastric cancer staging would be logical. Alone, no singular method would be sufficient in providing the physician with sufficient information to successfully stage the tumor and thus determine the appropriate treatment. Therefore, the combination of methods should be used which, in view of the economic constraints of health systems, would be recommended for high-risk patients for metastasis (N+/ T3-T4), diagnostic pre-operative laparoscopy.