What is gastric cancer?

Gastric cancer develops when cancer cells form in your stomach lining. Left untreated, these cells multiply to form masses, and cancer could spread to other organs and tissues.

Symptoms of the early  stages of gastric cancer include:

• Indigestion
• Bloating after meals
• Mild nausea
• Loss of appetite
• Heartburn

If gastric cancer gets to an advanced stage, you may experience the following Blood in your stool

• Vomiting
• Unintended weight loss
• Stomach pain
• Jaundice 
• Ascites (abdominal fluid build-up)
• Trouble swallowing

If you have any symptoms like these, it’s important not to ignore them, even though they could well be due to less serious causes.

What causes gastric cancer?

There is no single cause for gastric cancer, but there are risk factors that increase your chances of developing the condition.

There are links between gastric cancer and certain medical conditions, including:

• Helicobacter pylori infection 
• Chronic gastritis 
• Pernicious anemia
• Intestinal metaplasia 
• Gastric polyps
• Epstein-Barr virus
• Familial adenomatous polyposis

Your diet can also increase your risk of developing gastric cancer. If you eat a lot of salted or smoked foods or foods that aren’t safely stored or prepared, that increases your risk. A lack of fruit and vegetables in your diet also makes gastric cancer a higher risk.

Men are more likely to get gastric cancer than women, and the condition tends to affect older people. Your risk increases significantly if you’re a smoker, or have a family history of gastric cancer.

How is gastric cancer treated?

Treatment for gastric cancer depends on the stage of the cancer and can comprise both radiation therapy and chemotherapy as well as surgery to remove the tumor. You might have chemotherapy before surgery to shrink the tumor, and afterward to kill any remaining cancer cells.

It’s vital to have an expert surgical oncologist like Dr. Ellenhorn perform gastric cancer surgery. The reason is that to prevent gastric cancer from returning, removal of the lymph nodes is essential.

This procedure is known as D2 lymph node dissection and is an operation Dr. Ellenhorn has done many hundreds of times. He has also trained a generation of surgical oncology students on how to carry out what is a highly complex procedure.

Dr. Ellenhorn is a pioneer in minimally invasive surgery for gastric cancer and gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST). He is a leading expert in laparoscopic gastrectomy as well as da Vinci® robotic-assisted gastrectomy procedures. In fact, Dr. Ellenhorn has successfully completed more of these advanced forms of surgery for gastric cancer than anyone else in the Western United States. 

Call Joshua Ellenhorn, MD, now to take advantage of his exceptional surgical skills for gastric cancer or book an appointment online today.