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. 2013 Dec;29(6):248-51.
doi: 10.3393/ac.2013.29.6.248. Epub 2013 Dec 31.

Effect of gum chewing on the recovery from laparoscopic colorectal cancer surgery

Duk Yeon Hwang  1 , Ho Young Kim  1 , Ji Hoon Kim  1 , In Gyu Lee  1 , Jun Ki Kim  1 , Seung Taek Oh  1 , Yoon Suk Lee  1
Affiliations

Effect of gum chewing on the recovery from laparoscopic colorectal cancer surgery

Duk Yeon Hwang et al. Ann Coloproctol. 2013 Dec.

Abstract

Purpose: We aimed to examine the effect of gum chewing after laparoscopic colorectal cancer surgery.

Methods: We reviewed the medical records of patients who underwent laparoscopic colorectal cancer surgery in Incheon St. Mary's Hospital, The Catholic University of Korea School of Medicine. We divided the patients into 2 groups: group A consisted of 67 patients who did not chew gum; group B consisted of 65 patients who chewed gum. We analyzed the short-term clinical outcomes between the two groups to evaluate the effect of gum chewing.

Results: The first passage of gas was slightly earlier in group B, but the difference was not significant. However, the length of hospital stay was 6.7 days in group B, which was significantly shorter than that in group A (7.3 days, P = 0.018).

Conclusion: This study showed that length of postoperative hospital stay was shorter in the gum-chewing group. In future studies, we expect to elucidate the effect of gum chewing on the postoperative recovery more clearly.

Keywords: Chewing gum; Colorectal neoplasms; Laparoscopy; Sham feeding.

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Conflict of interest statement

No potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported.

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