Clinical and pathologic evaluation of patients with recurrence of gastric cancer more than five years postoperatively.

From the clinical and pathologic findings, the characteristics of recurrence of gastric cancer more than five years postoperatively were evaluated as compared with recurrence of less than five years postoperatively. The late (more than 5 years postoperative) recurrence rate was 2.0 per cent, or 17 of 864 patients who had undergone the so-called radical operation. The duration of disease prior to the first operation was comparatively long in the patients with late recurrence. Late recurrence is characteristic of localized cancer, such as Borrmann's type II, and differentiated adenocarcinoma with nonserosal invasion (pathologic findings of the resected stomach at the first operation) and by a recurrence pattern of hematogenous metastasis, especially liver metastasis.