[Gastric cancer. A review of the subject]

Of 102 cases of gastric carcinoma operated on, the tumor could be resected in only 53 patients. Over 60% of all cases had prolonged medical treatment before the diagnosis of gastric cancer was made. Most of the lesions were huge and locally advanced. Twenty nine operations could be considered as radical procedures, but, only fifteen of them filled the requirements of a curative radical operation (28,3%). There was no uniformity in the way that the surgical treatment was performed and too many Billroth I operations were done, (28%). This mainly because a preoperative surgical plan was not on hand. The overall surgical mortality was 14 per cent for all the cases explored, but increased to 22,5 per cent for the cases in which the tumor was resected. There was no case in which the tumor was limited to the mucosa and in the four cases classified as T1 the lesion infiltrated the muscular layer. The radical gastrectomy showed its benefits, only in those cases with limited penetration and negative nodes. This was sustained by the fact that the only survivals over ten years were four cases in the category of T2N2M0 and all of them were submitted to a radical gastrectomy. But, in advanced cases with large lesions and positive nodes the morbidity and mortality were considerable higher and survival was not even above two years. An effort in every way must be done to try to operate lesions much less advanced, but at the same time it is necessary the practice of radical surgical curate procedures in such cases.