Stomach cancer

The stomach is a tubular to pouch-shaped hollow organ located in the upper abdomen, just below the diaphragm. The oesophagus opens into it, from which it takes in food, digests it to a certain degree and passes it on to the duodenum .

Due to the complex anatomy, the treatment of stomach diseases is only reserved for stomach specialists and specialist centres , as it requires an interdisciplinary team of experts and therapy procedures at the cutting edge of medicine. The treatment concept should be individually tailored to the patients - to their life situation, tumour biology and personal wishes. You can expect all of this in my care.

Types of stomach cancer

Stomach cancer (gastric carcinoma) is a malignant disease of the upper digestive tract. Stomach specialists distinguish two types of malignant cancer:

Adenocarcinoma usually originates from the gastric juice-producing gland cells.

The rarer, so-called gastrointestinal stromal tumours (GIST) are variants of stomach cancer in which cells of muscle or connective tissue ( sarcomas ) or lymphatic cells (lymphomas) can be affected.

Stomach cancer symptoms

The symptoms of stomach cancer are non-specific. They can manifest themselves in the form of difficulty swallowing and stomach pain, pain in the upper abdomen, loss of appetite, disgust at meat dishes and night sweats. An early symptom may be the so-called tarry stool (melena) - a black discolouration of the stool caused by digested blood components - which requires further clarification by stomach specialists.

Although frequent heartburn is not considered an early symptom of stomach cancer, it can lead to stomach cancer at the junction of the oesophagus and the stomach if it persists for a long time. In this case, gastric specialists should also be contacted to find the cause of the heartburn.

Risk factors

Stomach cancer is favoured by various risk factors:

These include primarily alcohol and nicotine, as well as the consumption of salted (cured) and smoked foods.

However, previous inflammation of the stomach lining (gastritis), stomach ulcers (ulcus ventriculi), the giant folded stomach (Morbus Ménétriere) or previous stomach operations can also favour the development of a stomach tumour.

Especially after the age of 50, patients should not ignore the occurrence of stomach complaints and contact stomach specialists for further clarification and, if necessary, therapy.

Diagnostics

The most important diagnostic method is gastroscopy with endosonography, a special ultrasound of the stomach wall that can be performed from the inside during gastroscopy.

During this examination, if necessary, a sample can be taken with the help of a microneedle, which is subsequently examined for benignity or malignancy.

To complete the examination, stomach specialists arrange for a computer tomography of the abdominal and thoracic cavity and possibly also a PET computer tomography.

Treatment of stomach cancer

If stomach cancer is diagnosed, the extent is decisive for treatment.

If there are no metastases in other organs, surgery - the so-called (sub-)total gastric resection - is the method of choice. Minimally invasive or robot-assisted procedures are usually used. We pay special attention to the reconstruction of the stomach to ensure a particularly good quality of life after the operation.

Above a certain size, it is now standard worldwide to perform chemotherapy or radiochemotherapy (radiation and chemotherapy) before and after surgery.

Patients diagnosed with early gastric cancer can undergo a gentle endoscopic mucosal resection (EMR). In this procedure, small, superficial tumours are removed endoscopically and the stomach is preserved.

Life after the operation

Generally, no special rehabilitation is necessary after the hospital stay.

We recommend that you have a nutritional consultation with us at the hospital. In principle, the consumption of all food and drinks in somewhat smaller portions is possible again.

After the operation, you will receive an individual aftercare pass from us, in which a regular check of the healing success (tumour aftercare) is carried out.

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