[Choice of the right surgical treatment for gastric adenocarcinoma]

In order to choose the optimal for gastric cancer patients it is very important to know the TNM stage of the tumour. The evaluation of N stage it is very difficult both preoperatively and intra-operatively and for this reason it becomes important the accurate staging of T. Recently the ultrasonography on the resected specimen allow us to correctly diagnose the depth of tumour invasion in more than 90% of the cases. Since there is a close correlation between the depth of tumour invasion and the incidence of node metastases, it is possible to identify to the most appropriate operation for each patient according to site and T of the tumour.