THE PROBLEM OF GASTRIC CANCER

Abstract

A diagnosis of cancer of the stomach strikes fear into the hearts of patients. And well it might, when it is realized how relatively small the ultimate salvage of life is in patients whose disease is so diagnosed. One of the most favorable reports, that of Walters, Gray and Priestley¹ (1942) has suggested that only 6 per cent of their patients whose disease is diagnosed as gastric cancer are alive five years later. Weese² (1940) stated that of 883 patients admitted to the Tübingen Surgical Clinic between 1921 and 1932, only 8 per cent were alive five years later. Livingston and Pack³ (1939) stated that definitive cures of unselected patients with gastric cancer is probably in the range of 2 per cent. In other words, it appears that 92 to 98 per cent of patients who have gastric cancer will die of the disease within five years.