[Assessment of the cost of laparoscopy-assisted gastrectomy].
BACKGROUND
The cost of laparoscopic gastrectomy (LG) has not been fully clarified yet.


METHODS
The actual cost for the instruments used for surgery was examined between LG and conventional open gastrectomy( OG) by separating distant (l D-) and total (l T-) gastrectomy in a total of 20 patients(5 for each)during Oct 2010 and Feb 2011. The profit was defined as the difference of the actual cost and the operation fee including the instruments determined by the insurance and compared.


RESULTS
The fee for D-OG, T-OG, D-LG, and T-LG were 708, 700 yen, 856 , 400 yen, 783 , 600 yen and 922 , 300 yen, respectively. The mean profits of D-OG, T-OG, D-LG, and T-LG were 408 , 297 yen, 475 , 812 yen, 308, 681 yen and 269 , 478 yen, respectively.


CONCLUSIONS
Appropriate surgical and instrumental fees should be determined considering the actual cost.
Dept. of Gastrointestinal Surgery, Kanagawa Cancer Center.
Toru
T
Aoyama
Takaki
T
Yoshikawa
Tsutomu
T
Hayashi
Hiroshi
H
Kuwabara
Yo
Y
Mikayama
Takashi
T
Ogata
Haruhiko
H
Cho
Akira
A
Tsuburaya
Masae
M
Ito
Yasuko
Y
Ohta
Yukari
Y
Kabe
Chikako
C
Suzuki
Yasushi
Y
Rino
Munetaka
M
Masuda
D005743:Gastrectomy / Q000191:economics*; D006801:Humans; D010535:Laparoscopy / Q000191:economics*; D013274:Stomach Neoplasms / Q000191:economics* / Q000601:surgery