Laparoscopy-assisted and Open Distal Gastrectomy for Gastric Cancer in the Elderly Patients

* Laparoscopy-assisted distal gastrectomy for the treatment of early gastric cancer (EGC) has been supported by high-quality evidence, and the high-level evidence for advanced gastric cancer based on large prospective randomized controlled trial as CLASS-01、JCOG 0901, KLASS -02 is still awaited.Hopefully, it would have also gained the solid evidence of laparoscopy-assisted distal gastrectomy for the treatment of advanced gastric cancer (AGC). * China has entered the aging society since 1999. Among the GC patients in China, the average age is 65 years old, which makes increasing attempts to explore laparoscopic techniques in the treatment of elderly patients. * Nowadays, a considerable proportion of elderly patients suffer from multiple diseases, such as hypertension, diabetes, coronary heart disease. Thus the risk of intraoperative and postoperative complications can not be ignored. Unfortunately, there are rare studies specializing into the LAG for the GC patients of \> 65 years old. * Accordingly, the comparison of intraoperative and postoperative complications between laparoscopy-assisted and open distal gastrectomy for over 65 years old patients with gastric cancer based on a randomized controlled trial is warranted.