Effect of Prophylactic Placement of Percutaneous Endoscopic Gastrostomy on the Surgical Prognosis in Patients With Oral Cancer: A Pilot Study

Abstract

This study assessed the application of prophylactic percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (pPEG) in patients with newly diagnosed oral cancer (OC) who underwent surgery and were ready for subsequential chemoradiation. In total, 113 patients who underwent OC surgical treatment were divided into pPEG (n = 26), nasogastric tube (n = 54), and oral feeding (n = 33) groups. Their baseline characteristics, surgery-related outcomes, and nutritional data were analyzed using the Wilcoxon rank-sum test and χ2 test. No statistical significance was shown among the 3 groups using different flaps for reconstructing OC-related defects (P > 0.05). Patients of the pPEG group had the lowest incidence of surgical site infection (SSI; 23.1%, P = 0.006), but the longest hospital stay (24.1 ± 7.9 d, P < 0.001). Prophylactic percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy may decrease the frequency of SSI but increase the length of hospitalization in SSI OC. However, multicentric prospective clinical controlled trials with large sample sizes are needed to further validate our findings.