Patterns of Recurrence in Relation to Therapeutic Strategy in Gastric Cancer

Abstract

Despite intensive primary surgery for gastric cancer, the overall survival rate is low, and more than half of the patients succumb to a recurrence. In only 10% to 30% of cases does cancer recur locally in the gastric stump or bed, whereas about 30% to 70% of findings at the time of diagnosis present peritoneal or distant metastases. Therefore, combined with a low resection rate at the second operation, the prognosis of recurrent gastric cancer is still poor. The only approaches with tendency to increased survival and decreased recurrence rates can be anticipated by early diagnosis of gastric cancer and by the requirement for radical surgical treatment.

Key Words:

• Gastric cancer
• patterns of recurrence
• primary surgical treatment
• second operation for recurrent cancer