Selection of gastrectomy for adenocarcinomas arising in the gastric fundus

A retrospective study involving 174 patients with adenocarcinoma of the gastric fundus treated with proximal subtotal (PS), extended proximal subtotal (EPS), total (T), and extended total (ET) gastrectomy showed that 1)there were no statistically significant differences in operative mortality between the four gastrectomy types; 2)ET was associated with a significantly lower incidence of local recurrence than T (P less than 0.05) and PS (P less than 0.001); 3)ET resulted in a significantly higher survival rate than PS or T (P less than 0.01) when the three procedures were applied in patients who had TNM stage I and II tumors; 4)patients with stage III and IV tumors did poorly regardless of gastrectomy type. The study implies that intraoperative tumor staging might identify stage I and II patients who benefit the most from radical surgery and those with stage III and IV tumors who should receive palliative surgery.