Nutritional effects of total gastrectomy. A prospective randomized study of Roux-en-Y vs Longmire-Mouchet...

A prospective randomized study was carried out to evaluate the nutritional and clinical results of two reconstructive procedures after total gastrectomy for gastric cancer: Longmire-Mouchet (LM) operation with loop interposition and maintained duodenal transit and Roux-en-Y (RY) reconstruction with duodenal exclusion. 22 patients, 11 with LM reconstruction and 11 with RY reconstruction were studied pre-and postoperatively. The average follow-up was of 30 +/- 8 months. The clinical results were shown to be substantially similar to the two groups. No patients complained of heartburn or dysphagia. At esophagoscopy no signs of esophagitis were detected in both groups. The two time course curves of body weight variation did not show statistically significant differences even though in RY patients the body weight has reverted more rapidly to basal values.