Stomach Cancer

Description

Cancer highly disseminated (metastasis) and which origin is not clear. Environmental factors (diets rich in smoked and salty meals, poor in fruits and vegetables; smoking; Helicobacter pylori infection) and genetic factors influence the onset of stomach cancer.

Symptoms

ymptoms of stomach cancer arenot very specific and appear when disease is already in an advanced stage so it is very difficult to obtain a diagnosis.
The most common symptoms are lack of appetite, abdominal pain and discomfort and anemia (loss of blood with stools). In most advanced stages, there are also difficulties to swallow and vomits.

Treatment

Stomach cancer requires a medical surgical treatment and requires close collaboration between gastroenterologists, oncologists, radiologists and digestive surgeons. Depending on the stage of the disease, the oncologist will prescribe chemotherapy previous to surgery.
Surgical intervention consists on the removal of a part or the whole stomach and the lymphatic tissue surrounding it. It is an aggressive surgery which in most cases requires at least one week in hospital, although it depends on the recovery of the patient. In some cases, when the stomach tumor is small it is done with laparoscopy which is less aggressive and requires less time to recover after the surgery.