Minimally invasive surgery for upper gastrointestinal cancer: Our experience and review of the literature

Figure 2 XYZ-axis theory. The following three steps result in effective probing of the outermost layer: (1) dissection of the serosal membrane on the suprapancreatic border; (2) dissection of the fat tissue in the caudo-cranial direction towards the zero point; and (3) dissection of the fat tissue bearing the target LNs in the medio-lateral direction along the outermost layer on the XZ and YZ axes. The outermost layer adjacent to the zero point should be exposed during the 2^nd step.