The fear of cancer has caused many people to “talk about cancer,” and some people are even tempted to “just get rid of it. The most important thing to remember is that the most important thing is that you have to do what you can to prevent it.
In general, no. There are three reasons why it is not necessary. There are three reasons for this:
- Even today, with all the advances in surgical techniques and perioperative care, gastrectomy remains one of the riskier procedures in surgery, and reconstruction of the GI tract after resection can affect quality of life to some extent.
- For the general population, even with some high-risk factors, regular and timely follow-up, with standardized behavioral modification, medication, or minimally invasive endoscopic resection under the guidance of a physician, can lead to a cure without the need for a more invasive “prophylactic gastrectomy.
- The need for prophylactic gastrectomy and the timing of the procedure depends on the circumstances of the very few patients who are identified as having hereditary risk factors for gastric cancer because of the presence of extra-gastric tumors, such as colon, breast, and esophageal cancers. As for how to determine whether a person has hereditary risk factors for gastric cancer, those who meet one or more of the following factors need to be evaluated at a specialized oncogenetic center: a family member younger than 40 years old with gastric cancer; one first- or second-degree relative with gastric cancer and <50 years old at the time of diagnosis; ≥2 first- or second-degree relatives with gastric cancer at any age at the time of diagnosis; a patient with both breast cancer and gastric cancer, one of which is <50 years old at the time of diagnosis; a patient with a diagnosis of gastric cancer <50 years of age; patient was at any age at diagnosis of gastric cancer and had a family history of breast cancer, with a first- or second-degree relative <50 years of age diagnosed with breast cancer; patient was at any age at diagnosis of gastric cancer and had a history of juvenile polyps or gastrointestinal polyps; patient was at any age at diagnosis of gastric cancer and had a history of Lynch syndrome.