Gastric cancer: a continuing diagnostic challenge--a district general hospital's experience

We present the results of 87 consecutively referred patients with malignant gastric tumours who presented to the North Middlesex Hospital between 1980 and 1984, inclusively. The results of this prospective study showed a high incidence of adenocarcinoma situated in the cardia (16 per cent of patients), and antral carcinomas presented more commonly with chronic blood loss. Delay in diagnosis was still a serious problem and weight loss remained an underestimated symptom, especially when combined with other upper gastrointestinal symptomology. The majority of tumours were adenocarcinomas. Six patients had unusual tumours which had special therapeutic and prognostic implications. The results of the above study are compared with the European experience of the management of malignant gastric tumours.