Palliative care for advanced gastric cancer.

INTRODUCTION Proactive palliative care can effectively relieve symptoms early and effectively as well as improve quality of life of patients with gastric adenocarcinoma (GAC). AREAS COVERED The review summarizes palliative care for GAC. GAC caused specific symptoms, such as malignant gastric outlet obstruction (GOO), bleeding, weight loss, and/or ascites, therefore these symptoms must be addressed specifically. EXPERT OPINION Palliative care should start early to control general symptoms, thus may improve patient's condition to make the patient eligible for anti-cancer treatment. As some stage IV GAC patients can now live longer, palliative interventions become more important. A multimodality interdisciplinary approach is strongly encouraged.