Surgical management of gastric cancer: Single center experience from a developing country

BACKGROUND: Geographical distributional of gastric cancer (GC), differences in stage at the time of presentation and varying surgical expertise have resulted in different management strategies around the world. The aim of this study is to determine postoperative morbidity/mortality and overall survival in patients with GC treated at a cancer hospital in Pakistan. PATIENTS AND METHODS: A retrospective review of patients who underwent surgical resection with curative intent for GC from June 2006 to July 2012 was performed. Primary end point was overall survival after a minimum follow-up of 15 months. For categorical data, frequencies were calculated, and means were measured for continuous variables. Chi-square test was used to compare categorical data and Kaplan–Meir survival analysis was performed to estimate 5 years survival outcome using SPSS. RESULTS: Majority of the patients were males with median age of 51 years. Perioperative chemotherapy was offered to 75 patients while upfront surgery was performed in 23 patients. In perioperative chemotherapy group 51 patients and 22 in the upfront surgery group ended up having curative resection. The 5 years survival (n = 98) was found to be of 37%. The 5 years survival of patients in perioperative chemotherapy group (n = 75) was 44% while those who had a curative resection (n = 73) had survival of 46%. CONCLUSION: Gastric adenocarcinoma is an aggressive disease. Perioperative chemotherapy works well in Pakistani population as the results at our institution are comparable with international data.