Palliative surgery for gastric cancer

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Abstract
Most patients with gastric carcinoma have a disease that is too advanced for radical surgery. A Review was made of 13,175 cases of gastric carcinoma registered at the Birmingham Cancer Registry during the period of 1960–1969. Of the patients, 79.6% had disease that was not radically resected, and few of these patients survived to 2 years. Those who had a palliative resection or bypass had the lowest 30-day mortality rate when compared to all other palliative measures (P < 0.001). Furthermore, palliative resection gave the best survival in the presence of both locally advanced and metastatic disease (P < 0.001). This suggests that the best palliative procedure for those with a disease unsuitable for radical surgery is a resection.