[Multivisceral resection of advanced stomach cancer]

From 1985 to 1990, 589 patients with gastric cancer were operated upon. Gastric resection was performed on 416 patients (71%); it was curative in 330 cases and palliative in 86 cases. Multivisceral resection was necessary in 61 patients (i.e. 15% of the resected patients) because of distant metastases or T4 tumors (curative: 43 cases--palliative: 18 cases). Compared to the group of curative resections without multivisceral extension, the complication rate (27% vs 26%) and 30-day lethality (5.2% vs 3.3%) were similar, whereas the 5-year survival rate was lower (22% vs 48%). However, the survival rate (21%) was nearly identical for T3 tumors in the group without multivisceral extension. These results show that curative gastric resections of T4 tumors lead to the same long-term results as resections of T3 tumors and the complication rate and lethality are equal.