Surgery is the main treatment for gastric cancer

The surgical method for gastric cancer should be based on comprehensive considerations before and during surgery, such as the size of the cancer site, the extent of infiltration, resectability, possible range of lymph node metastasis, the presence of large amounts of ascites, pathological classification, and the presence of distant metastasis. Preoperative staging can serve as the main reference.

For patients with distant metastasis of gastric cancer, if the local cancer lesions can be removed, palliative resection can be adopted to solve the obstruction, prevent heavy bleeding or perforation, and improve the quality of life; if the local cancer lesions cannot be removed, gastrointestinal bypass surgery can be adopted to solve the obstruction.

Radical gastrectomy is a surgery for the purpose of radical cure. In order to ensure a clean resection, in addition to removing the cancerous lesion, a considerable amount of normal stomach wall around the cancerous lesion needs to be removed. If the cancerous lesion is located near the fundus or cardia, 2/3 or 3/4 of the proximal stomach needs to be removed, which is called proximal subtotal gastrectomy; if the cancerous lesion is located in the body or fundus of the stomach, a total gastrectomy is required.

For example, if gastric cancer patients have obvious defects in the function of important organs, accompanied by severe hypoproteinemia, extreme anemia, extreme malnutrition, severe infection, etc. and cannot tolerate surgery, in order to ensure the safety of the patients, surgery should be performed only after the above symptoms are corrected. If they cannot be corrected, surgery should be abandoned and other therapies should be tried, because even if surgery is performed under these circumstances, the patient's mortality rate and the incidence of various postoperative complications will be very high.