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©The Author(s) 2026. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Surg. Jan 27, 2026; 18(1): 115285
Published online Jan 27, 2026. doi: 10.4240/wjgs.v18.i1.115285
Published online Jan 27, 2026. doi: 10.4240/wjgs.v18.i1.115285
Staging laparoscopy in esophagogastric junction cancer: Systematic review and meta-analysis
Roberto de la Plaza Llamas, Diego Ribera Díaz, Paula Betancor Díaz, Raquel A Latorre-Fragua, Ignacio A Gemio del Rey, Department of Surgery, Medical and Social Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universidad de Alcalá, Alcalá de Henares 28871, Madrid, Spain
Roberto de la Plaza Llamas, Daniel A Díaz Candelas, Raquel A Latorre-Fragua, Ludovica Gorini, Rodrigo Arellano González, Ignacio A Gemio del Rey, Department of General and Digestive Surgery, Hospital Universitario de Guadalajara, Guadalajara 19002, Spain
Author contributions: De la Plaza Llamas R, Ribera Díaz D, Betancor Díaz P, Díaz Candelas DA, Latorre-Fragua RA, Gorini L, Arellano González R, and Gemio del Rey IA contributions to conception and design of the study, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, drafted the article or made critical revisions to important intellectual content in the manuscript; and all authors thoroughly reviewed and endorsed the final manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
PRISMA 2009 Checklist statement: The authors have read the PRISMA 2009 Checklist, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the PRISMA 2009 Checklist.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Roberto de la Plaza Llamas, MD, PhD, FACS, Chief Physician and Associate Professor, Department of Surgery, Medical and Social Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universidad de Alcalá, Campus Universitario - C/ 19, Av. de Madrid, Km 33600, Alcalá de Henares 28871, Madrid, Spain. roberto.plaza@uah.es
Received: October 15, 2025
Revised: October 29, 2025
Accepted: December 4, 2025
Published online: January 27, 2026
Processing time: 100 Days and 16.2 Hours
Revised: October 29, 2025
Accepted: December 4, 2025
Published online: January 27, 2026
Processing time: 100 Days and 16.2 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: Staging laparoscopy (SL) upstaged nearly one in five patients with clinically resectable gastroesophageal junction cancer by revealing occult peritoneal or hepatic metastases. This finding underlines the value of SL in refining staging and guiding treatment decisions. Diagnostic performance was especially high in Siewert II tumors, without any significant heterogeneity. However, key procedural and patient-related data were not appropriately reported across studies. These results support the routine use of SL in staging gastroesophageal junction tumors and highlight the urgent need for standardized reporting to improve risk stratification and clinical outcomes in this challenging and heterogeneous cancer subgroup.