Gastric cancer in the elderly patient.

ABSTRACT

The incidence of gastric cancer is increasing in elderly patients, unlike what it's being observed in the younger patients. The aim of this study is to evaluate the impact of the age on the resecability, resection type (R0-R1-2), morbidity, mortality and survival rate. The higher mortality observed in the elderly patients, the discussed role of an extended lymphadenectomy and the poor survival rate, would lead to a surgical approach which mostly tends to the palliation of the symptoms than the obtainment of a curative resection. But, on the other hand, the impossibility of making chemotherapy in most of the over 75 year old patients, lead us to a R0 surgery treatment.