title: Comments to young surgeons concerning laparoscopic spleen-preserving D2 lymph node dissection for advanced gastric cancer on the upper body.
abstract: Qualified radical gastrectomy with lymph node dissection is very important to the prognosis of patients with gastric cancer. Now D2 lymph node dissection is standard procedure for gastric cancer surgery, and spleen hilar lymph node dissection is mandatory for gastric cancer in upper body. Because the anatomy of vessels in this area is very complicated, D2 lymph node dissection is technical challenging not only for open gastrectomy but also for laparoscopic one. Adapting a new technique is important to all surgeons, but we surgeons should always consider a patient's safety as the most important factor during surgery and that efforts should be based on scientific rationale with oncologic principles. I hope that the recent report by Huang et al. about laparoscopic spleen preserving hilar lymph node dissection would be helpful to young surgeons who will perform laparoscpic total gastrectomy for gastric cancer.
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, Yonsei University Health System, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Yoon Young
authors.initials: YY
authors.lastname: Choi
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, Yonsei University Health System, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Ji Yeong
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: An
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, Yonsei University Health System, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Woo Jin
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Hyung
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, Yonsei University Health System, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Sung Hoon
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Noh
keywords: Gastric cancer; laparoscopy; lymph node dissection; spleen