Extended surgical resection in T4 gastric cancer.

Background: Some physicians still consider invasion of adjacent organs by the carcinoma of stomach as a sign of incurable disease.

Methods: This retrospective study has been done with particular reference to 353 T4 gastric cancer patients who underwent combined gastrectomies with adjacent organs.

Results: Subtotal gastrectomy was performed in 237 (67.1%) patients and total gastrectomy was performed in 116 (32.9%) patients. Organs most commonly resected with the stomach were the transverse colon in 159 (45%) cases, the tail of pancreas and spleen in 150 (42.5%), the left lobe of liver in 101 (28.5%), and the head of pancreas in 37 (10.5%) patients. A total of 110 postoperative complications occurred in this subset of patients corresponding to a complication rate of 31.2%. A total of 48 postoperative deaths occurred in this subset of patients corresponding to a mortality rate of 13.6%. The 5-year survival rate for all patients who underwent combined gastrectomy with adjacent organs was 25%. Of the node-negative T4 gastric cancer resections, 37% survived 5 years whereas the T4 node-positive resections have only a 15% 5-year survival.

Conclusions: Patients who present with T4 gastric cancer (about 20% of the patient population) will benefit from aggressive en bloc surgical resection and should not be considered unresectable.