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Updated: May 15, 2026
Laparoscopic Splenectomy with Pericardial Devascularization for Hypersplenism and Esophageal Variceal Hemorrhage Due to Portal Hypertension
Published on: November 15, 2024
Prognostic impact of prophylactic splenectomy for upper-third gastric cancer: a cohort study
Hiroaki Ito1, Haruhiro Inoue, Noriko Odaka
1Digestive Disease Center, Showa University Northern Yokohama Hospital, 35-1 Chigasakichuo, Tsuzuki-ku, Yokohama 224-8503, Japan. h.ito@med.showa-u.ac.jp
Aim:
The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of splenectomy on survival outcomes and recurrence in patients who underwent curative surgery for gastric cancer.
Patients And Methods:
This is a retrospective study of 129 patients who underwent upper-third gastric cancer curative resection with lymphadenectomy. Forty-two patients (32%) also underwent splenectomy.
Results:
The median follow-up period was 33 months. Approximately 40% of the patients had lymph node metastases; four of them had nodal involvement along the splenic artery and 5 had nodal involvement at the splenic hilum. No patients in the pT1-2 group with nodal metastases had involvement of the splenic hilar lymph nodes. There was no significant association between splenectomy and either overall or disease-free survival in the patients.
Conclusion:
Splenectomy should not be performed in patients with pT1-2 tumors for prophylactic lymphadenectomy.
