[Cancer of the gastric stump: our experience]

The experienced gained over the past few years in the Verona University Institute of Surgical Pathology has revealed a slow, though progressive, increase in the number of gastric stump cancers, reflecting a trend emerging in the literature. There can be no doubt that an important factor in the enhanced detection of such cancers is the adoption of digestive endoscopy in routine clinical practice. Silent symptoms, barely noticeable clinical signs and the particular aggressiveness of the tumours often lead to an excessively late diagnosis, which, unfortunately, limits the efficacy of surgical therapy. We therefore recommend, as a single solution to the problem, the endoscopic screening of all patients who have undergone gastric resection ten or more years ago in order to detect early stump cancer. Obviously, and fortunately, in a few years time gastric stump cancer will be a rare phenomenon, in view of the exponential drop in gastric resections for ulcer disease over the past decade.