Gastric tumours

Gastric tumours encompass adenocarcinoma, the most common type, as well as gastrointestinal stromal tumours, neuroendocrine tumours and gastric lymphoma. They are typically difficult to diagnose early as the ‘red flag’ features of gastric cancer tend to be associated with advanced disease. As a result, survival outcomes of gastric cancer are poor, with 5-year survival in the UK currently at 20%. There have been significant breakthroughs in systemic therapy and surgical technology to increase chances of cure and improve survival. These include immunotherapy and the introduction of robot-assisted surgery. Nevertheless, multimodal therapy and clear resection margins with radical lymphadenectomy remain the mainstay in trying to achieve a cure in gastric cancer.