CHICAGO -- Colon cancer surgery using a laparoscope, a minimally invasive technique still under review for its long-term effectiveness, offers few short-term benefits compared to traditional surgery and cannot be recommended yet, Reuters quoted researchers as saying on Tuesday.

"Until ongoing trials establish that laparoscopic-assisted colectomy is as effective as (standard surgery) in preventing recurrence and death from colon cancer, this procedure should not be offered to patients with colon cancer," said the report from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

A laparoscope is a long, thin tube that can be inserted into the abdomen through a small slit allowing the doctor to view organs and perform surgery.

In the case of colon cancer a number of small slits are used to view the colon and remove diseased portions. In standard or so-called open surgery an incision 8 inches to 12 inches (20.3 to 30.4 cm) long is made in the abdomen.

Proponents of the laparoscopic technique say it allows patients to recover more quickly with less pain, and as a result it has become popular, the report said; but it will be several years before studies show if it works as well as standard surgery in helping colon cancer victims survive.

The Dana-Farber researchers said their review of 428 patients found only "minimal quality of life benefits" involving such things as pain, activity, daily living, health, support and outlook for those who underwent laparoscopic-assisted colon surgery compared to those who had the standard surgery.

The patients, with an average age of 69, underwent surgery from 1994 to 1999 at 37 medical centers and were checked at two days, two weeks and two months after the procedure. This same group of patients is being followed for a determination on the long-term effectiveness of the laparoscopic technique.

These results were certainly a surprise, as it was generally assumed that quality of life after laparoscopic surgery would be substantially better," said Jane Weeks, a physician who was the study's lead author.

Although we did see modest advantages for laparoscopic surgery, these findings need to be considered in context," she said.

The goal of colon cancer surgery is to cure the cancer. Until the longer term results of this study are available in a few years, and we know whether laparoscopic surgery is as effective as the standard operation ... we believe that it should be viewed as experimental and offered only as part of a clinical trial," she said.

The study was published in this week's **** Journal of the American Medical Association **** which also carried an editorial commenting on it written by Nicholas Petrelli of the Helen F. Graham Cancer Center in Newark, Delaware.

He said that while it will be several years before it can be determined if survival rates are equivocal for the two kinds of surgery "an appropriate message regarding laparoscopic-assisted colectomy is need now ... especially for patients who continue to request, and on some occasions demand, the 'small incision technique to remove my colon cancer'."

Based on current knowledge, he said, the laparoscopic technique "should not be recommended in clinical practice until the efficacy and safety of this procedure have been definitively demonstrated."