Gastric cancer: views and overviews.

During the periods 1960 to 1975 and 1976 to 1986, all primary cancers of the stomach at the St. Francis Medical Center were analyzed according to patient age, ethnic origin, sex, environmental and occupational hazards, diet, smoking and alcoholic intake habits, family history of cancer, signs and symptoms, diagnostic procedures, medicosurgical management, surgical cancer staging, surgical procedures, follow-up, and survival. These data are presented and reasons for the decline in the incidence of gastric malignancies in the US are discussed in relation to the increase reported here.