How to measure quality of surgery as a component of multimodality treatment of gastric cancer.

Abstract

Gastric cancer (GC) is one of the most frequent reasons for cancer-related death worldwide. The multimodal therapeutic strategies are now pragmatically tailored to each patient, especially in advanced GC. A radical but safe gastrectomy remains the cornerstone of the GC treatment. Moreover, the quality-of-life (QoL) outcome measures are now routinely utilized in order to select optimal type of gastrectomy, as well as reconstruction method. Postoperative complications are frequent, and effective diagnosis and treatment of complications is crucial to lower the mortality rates. The postoperative complications prolong hospital stay and may result in poor QoL, thus eliminating the completion of perioperative adjuvant therapy. Therefore, avoiding morbidity is not only relevant for the immediate postoperative course, but can also affect long-term oncological outcome. Measuring outcome enables surgeons to: monitor their own results; compare quality of treatment between centres; facilitate improvement both for surgery alone and combined treatment; select optimal procedure for an individual patient. Textbook oncological outcome is a composite quality measure representing the ideal hospitalization for gastrectomy, as well as stage-appropriate (perioperative) adjuvant chemotherapy. Standardized system for recording complications and adherence to multimodality treatment guidelines are crucial for achieving the ultimate goal of surgical quality-improvement that can benefit patients QoL and long-term outcomes after fast and uneventful hospitalization for gastrectomy.