Surgery for gastric cancer: an evidence-based perspective

Despite a decreasing incidence, stomach cancer is the second leading cause of cancer mortality worldwide. Surgical resection offers the only chance for cure in this aggressive cancer. The surgical management of gastric cancer has witnessed numerous debates in the past decades. These include the extent of lymphadenectomy, extent of surgery, role of laparoscopic gastrectomy, and the impact of high volume of centers, on the outcome of surgery. This review attempts to address these controversies with an evidence-based perspective. A literature search in MEDLINE (www.pubmed.org) has been performed with the relevant key words and corresponding MeSH terms. The search has been limited to English publications on human subjects. A manual search of the bibliographies has also been carried out, to identify the relevant publications for possible inclusion.