Clinical recommendations for diagnosis, treatment and monitoring of patients with gastric cancer [Clinical recommendations diagnosis, treatment and monitoring of patients with gastric cancer]

Although the incidence of the most frequent malignant gastric tumour, adenocarcinoma, has been decreasing, during the last decades the incidence of proximal localizations of gastric cancer as well as esophagogastric cancer has been increasing. Due to the late detection of initially advanced disease the outcomes of treatment for the patients are unsatisfactory. Diagnosis is set by tumour biopsy during endoscopy. The basis of treatment of locoregional disease is surgery in combination with perioperative chemotherapy. Alternatively, if no preoperative chemotherapy is administered, adjuvant chemoradiotherapy or chemotherapy should be performed. Metastatic disease is treated with palliative chemotherapy and best supportive care. Treatment decisions should be individualized according to patients’ characteristics and made after multidisciplinary team discussion. The following text presents the clinical guidelines in order to standardize the diagnostic procedures, treatment and monitoring of patients with gastric cancers in the Republic of Croatia.