How long can I live if I have stomach cancer? This is a question that many gastric cancer patients and their families are concerned about. Surgeons always hope that the treated patients can have a long survival period, but it is difficult to have a definite answer to the question of how long can you live with gastric cancer. Before answering the question, we would like to introduce the current treatment methods of gastric cancer, including surgery, radiotherapy, Chinese medicine treatment, immunotherapy, etc. Each method has certain limitations, and the treatment of gastric cancer should be a systematic process centering on surgery and requires individualized and comprehensive treatment. So far, experts agree that surgery is the only possible way to achieve the goal of cure, so surgery has an irreplaceable role in the treatment of gastric cancer. Due to the improvement of diagnosis and treatment level of gastric cancer, the indications for surgery have been expanded accordingly. At present, except for those with huge and fixed primary foci, extensive metastasis of intra-abdominal organs and malignant fluid with bloody ascites, as long as the patient’s general condition permits, even if there are metastasis of supraclavicular lymph nodes and metastatic nodes in liver, the patient should strive for abdominal dissection to remove the primary foci and alleviate the symptoms. In recent years, the resection rate of cancer has increased to about 75%, mainly because of the increase of resection rate of stage II and III gastric cancer. The following is the surgery of gastric cancer, and the types of gastric cancer surgery are: 1. Radical resection: There are two types of radical resection surgery: radical resection and extended radical resection. (1) The scope of radical resection should include the primary lesion, together with the distal 2/3 or 4/5 of the stomach, all the large and small omentum, the first part of the duodenum and regional lymph nodes as well as locally infiltrated organs, with no cancer cells remaining in the stomach or duodenal section. (2) Extended radical resection in addition to the above, the whole stomach or adjacent invaded transverse colon, left lobe of the liver, spleen, tail of the body of the pancreas and left side of the cardia, lymph nodes adjacent to the splenic vasculature, etc. are also resected. There is no unanimous opinion on the choice of the above two surgical methods until now, and the main point of difference is the scope of gastrectomy and the scope of lymph node removal. In order to improve the cure rate of gastric cancer, the surgical style should be selected according to the specific condition and cannot be rigidly prescribed. If the cancer is located in the sinus and distal side of the lesser curvature, radical gastrectomy is appropriate; when the disease is advanced with deep lymph node metastasis or gastric body cancer or diffuse infiltrative cancer, extended radical surgery should be considered. Although extended radical surgery can improve the curative effect, the operative mortality and postoperative complications are still higher than those of radical surgery. This procedure cannot replace radical surgery. 2.Palliative gastrectomy: When gastric cancer has extensive metastasis to peritoneum or lymph nodes, but the primary tumor can be removed and the patient can tolerate surgery in general, palliative gastrectomy can be performed. This surgery can alleviate patients’ toxic symptoms and eliminate complications such as obstruction, bleeding or perforation caused by cancer tumors. After surgery, it can be supplemented with chemotherapy and herbal medicine to prolong the survival of patients. 3.Short-circuit surgery: It is suitable for patients with advanced gastric cancer that cannot be removed surgically and is accompanied by obstruction. For example, pyloric sinus cancer combined with pyloric obstruction can be performed as pre-colonic or post-colonic gastrojejunostomy. In case of gastric cardia cancer with obstruction, lateral jejunoesophageal anastomosis can be performed, the latter often requires open-heart surgery, and the indications for surgery should be stricter than the former. General shortcut surgery can not improve the curative effect, but can reduce the patient’s pain and improve the quality of survival. In general, how long a patient can live with gastric cancer involves many factors, mainly depending on the pathological type and stage of the tumor, whether the treatment method is appropriate and the patient’s physical function. In addition, gastric cancer patients and their family members should learn more about the treatment knowledge of gastric cancer and communicate more with the attending physicians, which will help to prolong the survival of gastric cancer patients. For early stage gastric cancer patients, it mainly depends on whether the appropriate treatment is taken in time. Generally speaking, early gastric cancer is small and has not spread and metastasized, so the most effective treatment means is radical resection by surgery. The 5-year survival rate after resection of early gastric cancer can reach about 80%, and after surgery, the decision of whether radiotherapy, Chinese medicine and other treatments are needed is based on pathological reports. Clinically, the five-year survival rates of stage I, II, III and IV are 77.7%, 42.4%, 21.79% and 11.43% respectively, and they are related to pathological types and treatment methods. For patients with intermediate and advanced gastric cancer, it mainly depends on whether the treatment method is appropriate and the patient’s physical condition. The treatment methods of middle and advanced gastric cancer mainly include surgery, radiotherapy and Chinese medicine. Gastric cancer is one of the more sensitive tumors in the gastrointestinal tract to chemotherapy, which is also one of the most important methods of gastric cancer treatment. There are mainly single-agent chemotherapy and combination chemotherapy for middle and late stage gastric cancer, and the effect of combination chemotherapy is better than single-agent chemotherapy. However, the optimal duration of chemotherapy for mid- to late-stage gastric cancer is not clear, because the therapeutic toxicity of chemotherapy increases gradually as its duration increases, which has no significant effect on prolonging the survival of patients with mid- to late-stage gastric cancer. Therefore, chemotherapy drugs and duration of chemotherapy should be based on tumor remission, symptom relief, and treatment-related toxicity. In addition, in view of the toxic side effects of chemotherapy on human body, Chinese medicine treatment can be combined in the treatment of intermediate and advanced gastric cancer to enhance the effect and reduce the toxicity. For advanced gastric cancer patients with extensive metastasis and weak body function, who can hardly tolerate chemotherapy, conservative treatment with TCM can be used. Although the short-term effect is not as obvious as chemotherapy, the long-term effect is good, and it has obvious effects in improving the quality of survival and prolonging the survival period. How long can a patient live with gastric cancer? To a certain extent, it is also related to the patient’s body function. A good body function and strong immunity can resist the development of cancer and tolerate various drug treatments. Therefore, it is extremely important for gastric cancer patients, especially those with mid- to late-stage gastric cancer, to improve their immune function and enhance their resistance to tumors. In terms of diet, gastric cancer patients should deal with the relationship between diet and the peak time of chemotherapy drug action and avoid eating during the peak of drug action; they must give sufficient nutrition and rich vitamins to replenish qi and generate blood; they can also rely on taking traditional Chinese medicines that have the effects of resolving phlegm and dispersing knots; regulating qi and removing stasis; improving immunity; killing cancer cells; and inhibiting the development of cancer cells. In addition, patient’s emotion and mental state can also affect the prognosis, and optimism and cheerfulness are helpful to the treatment of tumor. In conclusion, how long a patient can live with gastric cancer varies from person to person. Having gastric cancer is not equal to death, as long as it can be detected early and effective and reasonable treatment plan is adopted, it can be effectively controlled.