The surgical treatment of cancer of the stomach.

From 1965 to 1977, 2421 patients with gastric cancer underwent operation in our hospital. 66% were males (mean age 55.9 years) and 34% females (mean age 52.2 years); 31% had a mucosal (m) and submucosal cancer (sm); 16.8% had intramuscular cancer (pm); a curative operation was performed in 62.0% of cases. The five and ten year survival rates of the advanced cancer group are 52.5% and 42.3%, whereas in the early cancer cases they are 95.0% and 85.4% respectively. These five and ten-year survival rates are significantly lower in patients with lymph node metastasis (43.3% and 35.4%). Thirty five per cent of the patients who underwent resection from 1957 to 1963 required an enlarged total gastrectomy, compared with 15% in the present series.