To analyze the short-term outcomes between open and robotic gastrectomy for elderly gastric cancer patients and explore the independent factors which influenced postoperative complications after gastrectomy.

A retrospective study was conducted. We collected clinical data of 161 elder patients (Age over 70 years) undergoing open or robotic gastrectomy in the department of general surgery, Chinese PLA General Hospital First Medical Center between May 2017 and May 2021 were collected. The characteristics of clinicopathological datas between two groups were not significantly different(P>0.05).

The operative time was significantly longer in the robotic group compared to the open group [(242.92±55.12) min vs. (170.37±43.15)min, P<0.001]. Although intraoperative bleeding was comparable between the robotic and open groups [100 ml (100-200) ml vs. 100 ml (10-200) ml, P=0.102], the proportion of bleeding ≥400 ml was significantly lower in the robotic group compared with the open group(4.8% vs. 15.4%), with a statistically significant difference (P=0.025). The difference between the robotic and open groups were not statistically significant in the aspect of the number of retrieved lymph nodes [(24.51±9.51) vs. (24.28±9.36), P=0.881], postoperative hospital stay [10.0 d (9.0-12.0) d vs. 9.1 d (8.6-11.0) d, P=0.094], 30 days postoperative complication rate (25.3% vs. 26.9%, P=0.815), severe complication rate (8.4% vs. 3.8%, P=0.228), anastomotic leakage rate (2.4% vs. 5.1%, P=0.363), and 30 days postoperative mortality (2.4% vs. 1.3%, P=0.597). Univariate and multifactorial analyses showed that age ≥80 years was an independent risk factor for postoperative complications in elderly patients with gastric cancer.

Elderly patients who accepted robotic gastrectomy are safe and feasible. Over 80 years old is the independent risk factor of the postoperative complications after gastrectomy which needs to evaluate the surgical risk sufficiently.