The role of surgery in the current treatment of gastric carcinoma

Surgery currently is the only curative option in the treatment of gastric cancer. For early gastric cancer, an endoscopic mucosal resection (EMR) is adequate for intramucosal cancer less than 2 cm in diameter without ulcer. For early cancers ineligible for EMR, limited surgical operation (proximal gastrectomy, segmental resection, and pylorus-preserving distal gastrectomy) can be recommended to reduce surgical risk and achieve improvements in quality of life without decreasing survival. Subtotal/total gastrectomy plus D2 lymph node dissection is the standard surgery for advanced gastric cancer in Japan. Pancreas-preserving total gastrectomy is recommended due to the reduced risk of pancreatic fistula and postoperative diabetes. Regarding extended surgery, results of a phase III study to evaluate the role of paraaortic node dissection will be analyzed in a few years' time after the accrual of more than 500 patients in a Japan Clinical Oncology Group (JCOG) study. For scirrhous gastric cancer, left upper abdominal exenteration appears to be associated with improved survival and should be tested in another controlled trial.