Clinical research was carried out on stomach cancer cases treated in the surgery department of our hospital, which provides medical services to the populace in the southern part of Fukushima Prefecture.
During the 10-year period between Jan. 1981 and Dec. 1990, a total of 641 cases were referred to surgery. Of the total, 568 cases or 88.6% were operated on and 501 or 78.2% were radical gastrectomy cases.
When a careful check was made on these cases with respect of staging, histology, invasion degree and lymph node metastasis, it was found that the ratio of early stage stomach cancer cases was increasing steadfastly year after year.
Regarding the 5-year survival rate, 63.7% was scored by the operated cases and 73.2% by radical gastrectomy cases. These rates were up by 18.6% and 17.0% from five years ago. The above findings indicate that improvement in treatment results is due to technical progress in detection of gastric cancer at early stages.