Application of laparoscopic surgery (LS) has expanded worldwide in the various fields due to the potential advantage of being less invasive than open surgery; however difficulty in recognizing positional relationship of the organs is one of the disadvantages of this kind of surgery. In order to compensate this drawback, preoperative three-dimensional computed tomography (3D-CT) simulation is regarded as promising. In gastric cancer surgery, 3D-CT simulation seems particularly effective in the splenic hilar dissection, because this region is associated with remarkable anatomical variation with complexity. As effects from the use of 3D-CT simulation, reduction of blood loss or complication rate, shortening of operation time and enhancement of surgical quality are expected. In this article, we introduce our methodological protocol of 3D-CT simulation in gastric cancer surgery with clinical case examples, and also additionally review previous publications reporting this imaging technology.
Keywords: Three-dimensional simulation; gastric cancer; laparoscopic lymph node dissection.