LEEDS, England, May 12 (UPI) -- A 10-year trial by British researchers finds that keyhole surgery appears to be as effective for colon cancer as open surgery.
The results were reported in The Lancet.
Dr. Pierre Guillou of St. James Hospital in Leeds and his colleagues followed 730 patients with colorectal cancer, including 253 who received open surgery, 484 who received keyhole surgery, and 143 patients who underwent conversion from keyhole to open surgery.
In the open procedure, surgeons remove a section of the intestine around the tumor. In the keyhole procedure, doctors use a tiny camera inserted through a 5-centimeter incision to excise the tumor.
Keyhole surgery has become common in many types of operations but has seen limited use for colon and rectal cancer. Guillou reported that the risk of recurrence and of complications appeared to be about the same for the two types of procedures.
Myriam Curet of Stanford University in California said in an accompanying note that Guillou's findings show that keyhole surgery may become "the new gold standard" for colorectal cancer patients who are appropriately selected and operated on by experienced surgeons.
