[Exploratory laparotomy in stomach cancer].

The results of performance of exploratory laparotomy in 333 patients with gastric cancer have been analysed. The main reason of the use of laparotomy consists in seldom use of the special methods for diagnosis of tumor spreading. Complex use of laparoscopy and radionuclide methods for diagnosis permits to reduce the number of unsubstantiated laparotomies by 45-50% and bring down the frequency of its performance to 12-15% of the total number of operative interventions in gastric cancer.