Turkish Journal of
GERIATRICS

Kocaeli Üniversitesi Tıp Fakültesi, Gastroenteroloji Bilim Dalı, Derince İZMİT While frequency of stomach cancer has been decreasing for the last 3-4 decades, average life in population has been increasing. Therefore, the ratio of the old with stomach cancer in total cases has been increasing. In the East Blacksea region of Turkiye, 145 cases with gastric adenocancer at least 80 years old and diagnosed between 1986 and 1998 were evaluated retrospectively in terms of various clinical features. Tumor localization was 113 distal part of stomach in 57.93 percent of the cases. Histologically, the frequency of intestinal type was 56.55 percent and diffuse type was 43.44 percent (p>0.05). Ninety-five of 145 cases could not be operated because they had another serious disease or metastatic disease or they were too old. Seventeen of them didn't come for clinical follow-up. In twenty of 50 operated cases, tumor was in stage IV and palliative distal subtotal gastrectomy or gastrojejunostomy was performed in 14 of them. Curative distal subtotal or total gastrectomy was carried out 30 cases with stage I-III tumor. Five-year survival rate was 23.33 percent in the curatively resected cases and 0 percent in the noncuratively operated cases (p< 0.01). Average survival in the curatively operated cases was significantly longer than in the nonoperated cases having less than stage IV disease (p<0.01 ), but in the stage IV tumors, average survival was not significantly different between operated and nonoperated cases. In conclusion, early diagnosis, decreasing problems on vital organs before and after operation, and being operated if there is no metastatic disease have positive effect on both survival rate and quality of life in the old patients with gastric carcinoma. Keywords : Gastric cancer, Geriatrics, Prognosis, Malignancy, Elderly