Minimally invasive surgery for gastric tumors

Since 1991, laparoscopic surgery has been adopted for the treatment of gastric tumors, including gastric cancer and gastric gastrointestinal submucosal tumor (GIST). Although laparoscopic gastric resection for gastric tumors has not been accepted worldwide, its use has definitively increased due to its reduced invasiveness. The most common procedures are laparoscopy-assisted distal gastrectomy (LAGD) for cancer and laparoscopic local resection for GIST. To establish laparoscopic gastric resection as a standard of care for gastric tumors, multicenter randomized controlled clinical trials are needed to evaluate its short- and long-term outcomes.