Symptomatology and Diagnosis of Gastric Cancer

GASTRIC cancer is the cause of death in approximately one fourth of all patients who die of cancer. The incidence of resectability in patients with gastric cancer who came to operation at the Memorial Hospital is 39.8 per cent (cardia, 59 per cent).1The resectability rate reported in the literature ranges from 25 to 50 per cent.2The rate of five year survival without recurrence in patients recovering after operative removal of their gastric cancer is 34.7 per cent at the Memorial Hospital, varying from 42.8 per cent of the patients without nodal metastasis to 24.2 per cent of those whose disease was not confined to the stomach. This study was undertaken in an attempt to determine whether any correlation existed between the duration and type of symptoms or physical findings and the resectability rate among 1,117 patients with gastric cancer studied and treated at the Memorial Hospital