Table 6. Meta-regression analysis.

Variable	Coefficient	Standard error	P value	95% CI
Operative time
Study quality	24.784	27.306	0.388	−36.986 to 86.553
Year of publication	−39.016	26.020	0.168	−97.877 to 19.846
Country of patients	−31.149	35.156	0.399	−110.678 to 48.379
Sample size	7.435	30.133	0.811	−60.732 to 75.601
Stage of gastric cancer	15.702	18.197	0.411	−25.463 to 56.868
Lymph node dissection	34.537	21.836	0.148	−14.861 to 83.936
Blood loss
Study quality	−118.080	58.824	0.091	−262.017 to 25.858
Year of publication	−44.325	61.162	0.496	−193.983 to 105.332
Country of patients	−2.482	76.190	0.975	−188.911 to 183.947
Sample size	220.280	56.992	0.008	80.827 to 359.734
Stage of gastric cancer	77.672	43.096	0.122	−27.780 to 183.125
Lymph node dissection	−61.135	41.344	0.190	−162.300 to 40.030
Harvested lymph nodes
Study quality	4.231	1.620	0.031	0.496 to 7.965
Year of publication	−0.933	1.687	0.595	−4.823 to 2.956
Country of patients	−1.116	3.720	0.772	−9.694 to 7.462
Sample size	−1.677	1.963	0.418	−6.203 to 2.850
Stage of gastric cancer	1.402	1.251	0.295	−1.482 to 4.287
Lymph node dissection	3.421	1.763	0.088	−0.643 to 7.486
First flatus day
Study quality	−0.450	0.435	0.336	−1.480 to 0.579
Year of publication	0.025	0.439	0.956	−1.013 to 1.063
Country of patients	−1.169	0.621	0.102	−2.637 to 0.299
Sample size	0.109	0.437	0.810	−0.925 to 1.143
Stage of gastric cancer	0.198	0.334	0.572	−0.592 to 0.988
Lymph node dissection	−0.107	0.336	0.759	−0.901 to 0.687
Postoperative hospital stay
Study quality	−2.116	0.659	0.015	−3.675 to −0.557
Year of publication	0.224	0.911	0.813	−1.931 to 2.379
Country of patients	−2.529	0.942	0.031	−4.757 to −0.301
Sample size	2.744	0.817	0.012	0.811 to 4.676
Stage of gastric cancer	0.036	0.624	0.956	−1.440 to 1.512
Lymph node dissection	2.480	0.715	0.010	0.790 to 4.170

Data in bold, significant P-value.