Surgery for Early Gastric Cancer: A European One-Center Experience

n= 150), a total gastrectomy in 33.8% (n= 85), and either a proximal or an atypical resection in 6.4% (n= 16). Since 1985 subtotal distal resection and total gastrectomy were accompanied by a systematic lymphadenectomy of compartments I and II. The overall postoperative morbidity was 18.3%, and the hospital mortality, 4.9%; it was only 1.6% within the last decade. Concerning these short-term results there were no statistically significant differences between the different surgical procedures. The cumulative overall 5-year-survival rate was 82.6%. There was no statistically significant influence of either the different surgical procedures or the histologic types according to the Japanese classification of early gastric cancer.