[A case of long-term survival after hepatic resection for metastatic gastric cancer]

We report a case of long-term survival of a patient who underwent hepatic resection for metastatic gastric cancer. The patient was a 75-year-old man who underwent distal gastrectomy for gastric cancer in 2004. On pathological examination, the tumor was diagnosed as T4a (SE) N0M0, stage IIB. A metastatic lesion was detected in segment 6 of the liver at 2 years after gastrectomy. With regard to radiological findings, a single metastatic lesion and no lymph node metastasis or peritoneal recurrence was observed. The hepatic lesion was curatively resected. Another metachronous liver metastasis was identified in segment 7 of the liver at 3 years after gastrectomy. We resected the remnant liver metastasis, after which the patient has not exhibited any evidence of tumor recurrence for more than 5 years. This case suggests that patients could survive for a long period after undergoing resection of hepatic metastasis because no lymph node metastasis was observed during the operation of the primary gastric cancer, only a single hepatic metastasis without any metastasis to other organs was observed, and the metastatic lesion of the liver could be curatively resected.