Feasibility of Enhanced Recovery After Surgery Without Prophylactic Abdominal Drainage Tubes After Laparoscopic Distal Gastrectomy For Gastric Cancer

Launched by ZUOYI JIAO · Jun 17, 2025

Keywords

ClinConnect Summary

This clinical trial is studying whether it’s safe and effective to skip the use of routine drainage tubes after a type of minimally invasive stomach surgery for gastric cancer, called laparoscopic distal gastrectomy. Normally, these tubes are placed to help remove fluids from the abdomen after surgery, but this study wants to see if patients can recover just as well without them, as part of a faster recovery plan called Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS). Patients will be randomly assigned to either have the surgery with drainage tubes or without them, and the doctors will closely monitor their recovery, quality of life, and any complications.

Adults aged 18 to 80 with a confirmed diagnosis of stomach cancer who are healthy enough for this surgery may be eligible to join. The study excludes people with other serious health problems, certain types of advanced cancer, or those having emergency or more complex surgeries. If you participate, you will follow a recovery plan designed to help you heal quickly, and you won’t have to deal with extra tubes for feeding or stomach decompression. The study team will carefully collect information while keeping group assignments confidential to ensure unbiased results. This research aims to improve recovery after stomach cancer surgery by potentially reducing the need for invasive drainage tubes.

Gender

ALL

Eligibility criteria

• Inclusion Criteria:
• • 1. Patients' age from 18 to 80 years old;
• • 2. Histopathologically confirmed gastric adenocarcinoma;
• • 3. Clinical tumor stage of cT1-4N0-3M0;
• • 4. Laparoscopic distal gastrectomy approach;
• • 5. ECOG score of 0-1;
• • 6. Written informed consent
• Exclusion Criteria:
• • 1. Patients with severe concurrent illness or comorbid diseases;
• • 2. Patients with severe pyloric obstruction, recurrent or remnant gastric cancer; 3. Patients with perforation, or undergoing emergency surgery;
• • 4. Patients with a history of radiotherapy; 5. Patients undergoing complex abdominal surgeries other than laparoscopic cholecystectomy or appendectomy; 6. Patients with peritoneal, hepatic or ovarian metastasis, or simultaneous tumors in other parts of the body preoperatively and intraoperatively; 7. Patients with diabetes and poor recent glycemic control; 8. Patients with autoimmune diseases who have received corticosteroid treatment; 9. Patients with a BMI ≥30 kg/m2 or \<18 kg/m2; 10. Patients with gastrointestinal hemorrhage and hemoglobin levels below 90 g/L; 11. Patients with hypoproteinemia and albumin levels below 30 g/L; 12. Patients with portal hypertension; 13. Patients with severe edema or dense fibrosis intraoperatively after neoadjuvant therapy; 14. Patients with intraoperative findings of duodenal invasion; 15. Patients with combined organ resection; 16. Reconstruction different from BillrothⅡand Braun anastomosis; 17. Patients with preoperative pathological examination inconsistent with postoperative result; 18. Declined to participate; 19. Patients with poor compliance and withdrew from the study halfway