Resection Research Articles

Cancer of the stomach is admitted to be a very depressing disease. It kills about 10,00o1 a year in England and Wales* and is said to account for one-third of all cancers in men and one-fifth in women.2 It is so insidious in onset, and so painless in progression, that it often passes unnoticed until it is too late for successful operation. But in spite of these facts there is too much pessimism about it in the minds of both the medical profession and the public, who often think and say that it is incurable, and therefore patients are not encouraged to come for operation, which is the only treatment-that can cure the disease. If a radical operation is done early there is a hope of cure in a fair proportion of cases ; and from palliative operation of much relief and prolongation of life. As it is* only a small proportion ever come to the surgeon ; less than 50 per cent, of these come in time for any operation to be justifiable, and less than 30 per cent, in time for radical resection. 'The mortality from this operation, when performed by experts, used to be about 10 per cent., but D. C. Balfour3 reduced this to 5 per cent, in his last 200 resections. Finsterer* had a mortality of 6 per cent, in 211 simple resections, and 41 per cent, in 129 complicated resections?that is, when the growth had invaded surrounding organs, such as the c?lon or pancreas. Gatewood/ analysing, all the cases of cancer of the stomach admitted to the Presbyterian Hospital, Chicago, during the ten years 1920-30, states that 209 were operated upon, including fifty-eight resections, with a mortality of 18 per cent. Balfour has reviewed 128 patients at the Mayo Clinic who had survived resec tion for over ten years ; this number formed 20 per cent, of those who had survived this operation, performed at the Clinic between 1910 and 192?. Finsterer found that

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