Dr. Terashima on Bursectomy for Subserosal and Serosal Gastric Cancer

Masanori Terashima, MD, PhD, FACS, chairman of the Japanese Clinical Oncology Group, discusses bursectomy for patients with subserosal and serosal gastric cancer.

In Japan, since the 1950s, bursectomy was standard treatment for patients with advanced gastric cancer. However, due to negative reports, omentectomy became the new standard until a small, randomized phase II study was performed comparing bursectomy with non-bursectomy.

According to the trial, bursectomy seems to improve survival outcomes. However, due to the small sample size, researchers could not detect a significant enough difference between the 2 arms.