Objective: It is difficult to conduct a randomised control trial in a single institution because of the small number of cases. The current study was conducted to investigate if there is any difference in long-term outcome between laparoscopic surgery (LAC) and open surgery (OC) using propensity-score matching analysis based on prognostic factors.
Materials:Two hundred and sixteen patients with locally-advanced colon cancer who underwent surgery with curative intent at our department between 2002 and 2010 were enrolled in the current study.
Methods:Propensity score matching analysis and Inverse Probability Weighting (IPW) estimator were used to adjust for differences in the clinicopathological severity between LAC and OC.Results: Before propensity score matching analysis recurrence-free survival in LAC was statistically better than that in OC (Hazard ratio = 0.59, 95% CI 0.35-0.98, p = 0.04), and no statistically significant difference was recognized for cancer-specific survival (Hazard ratio = 0.63, 95% CI 0.27-1.37, p = 0.25). After propensity score matching analysis there were no statistically significant differences for recurrence-free (Hazard ratio = 0.91, 95% CI 0.41-2.01, p = 0.81) or cancer-specific survival (Hazard ratio = 1.38, 95% CI 0.41-4.82, p = 0.59). In addition, the IPW estimator revealed that the difference for recurrence-free survival was not significant between the two groups.
Conclusion:The one-to-one pair propensity score matching successfully balanced the clinicopathological factors between LAC and OC. The propensity score matching analysis demonstrated no significant difference between LAC and OC.