Follow-up study on the cause of death after surgery for gastric and duodenal ulcers with special reference to the incidence of residual stomach cancer.

Of 1325 patients operated for gastric or duodenal ulcer between 1948 and 1977, 295 (22.3%) had died. We analyzed the cause of death in these patients by follow-up study. The 3 major causes were cerebro-, cardiovascular and malignant disease, the same as in the normal Japanese population. In patients with malignant diseases, death was due to cancer of the liver, lung and remnant gastric stump in 6.0%, 5.2% and 0.4%, respectively. Compared to Western countries, the incidence of cancer of the gastric remnant was remarkably low in our series.