[Surgical management of gastric carcinoma (author's transl)]

The treatment of choice of gastric carcinoma is still radical surgery which has to be tried in all cases which are not proven to be untreatable by this method. During surgery the tumor as well as regional lymph nodes and neighboring structures have to be removed; in special cases subtotal gastrectomy carrying a lower risk at surgery does allow complete removal of the tumor. Replacing the stomach by interposition of a long loop of the small intestine has proven to yield good results. The overall bad results of management of gastric carcinoma cannot be improved to any considerable extent by surgical means, e.g. by lowering the risk of surgery or by increasing the number of patients operated upon. Early diagnosis is of outmost importance since patients with tumors of an early stage have a rather good chance of being completely cured.