Operative outcome of laparoscopic colorectal cancer surgery in a regional hospital in a developing country: A propensity score-matched comparative analysis

Objective: Laparoscopic surgery is an alternative procedure for colorectal cancers. However, high-level supporting evidence has been derived from high-volume centers in developed countries. During the early phase of applying the laparoscopic approach, we evaluated the procedure’s short-term outcomes in our regional middle-volume hospital in a developing country. Methods: We retrospectively analyzed data for a cohort of 223 colorectal cancer patients who underwent elective surgery from October 2017 to September 2019. We compared 165 patients undergoing open surgery (OS group) with 58 undergoing laparoscopic surgery (LS group) using a propensity score-matched analysis. Results: After matching, each group contained 58 patients for evaluating outcomes. The LS group had more harvested mesenteric lymph nodes (5.0 nodes, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.8–8.1; p-value