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Updated: Jun 25, 2026
Laparoscopic Radical Gastrectomy for Remnant Gastric Cancer
Published on: October 31, 2025
[Indications and results of palliative gastric resection in advanced gastric carcinoma]
1Klinik für Allgemein-, Viszeral- und Gefässchirurgie, Universitätsklinikum Jena, Germany.
Background:
Gastric carcinoma is often diagnosed at UICC stage 3 b or 4. R0 resection can be achieved only in very few such cases. Even for these patients the 5-year survival rate is less than 5 %. Surgical palliation is traditionally reserved for the treatment of severe tumour complications not responding to other forms of treatment.
Patients And Methods:
We report on 21 patients who underwent palliative resection for gastric carcinoma at our institution between 2004 and 2007. Ten of these were assigned to palliative surgical treatment pre-operatively while this choice was made for 11 patients on the grounds of the intra-operative findings. We performed 17 gastrectomies, 3 proximal gastric resections and one distal gastric resection.
Results:
It has been shown that the patients have an improved overall survival time as compared to patients who received non-surgical treatment. The perioperative risk was reasonable when patients were carefully selected. Median survival for resected patients was 16 months. 80 % of patients were alive after 6 months and approximately 60 % of patients were alive after 12 months. The perioperative mortality was 0 % with a mean hospital stay of 12 days. All patients were discharged home with proper bowel passage and analgesia as individually required.
Conclusions:
We are convinced that palliative gastric resection provides a pronounced survival benefit over any other palliative treatment options. Patients also have an improved quality of life.
