Surgical considerations in gastric cancer.

The American Joint Committee on Cancer staging system for gastric cancer is presented and its importance for defining prognosis and therapy is described. The report of the Gastrointestinal Tumor Study Group concerning adjuvant chemotherapy for gastric cancer is presented and the criteria for curative and noncurative resections are elucidated. The concepts of intraperitoneal chemotherapy, as an adjunct to aggressive surgical resection, is discussed.