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Below, week by week, is what OnCo's record of Early gastric cancer says about the first two months: the order is typical, the timing is yours to ask about. Early gastric cancer has not grown beyond the submucosa, whatever the lymph nodes show. In Japan and Korea, where screening endoscopy finds most stomach cancers at this stage, many are removed through the endoscope without an operation, and the rest are cured by gastrectomy. Sections appear only where the record has something to say. Orientation, not medical advice.
Staging tests establish exactly what and where the cancer is. Everything else follows from the answers.
Ask which of these were tested and what the results were; see the report reader for what each value means.
These specialties appear in the standard of care for this cancer. In most centres they meet weekly as a tumour board to agree each plan; you can ask when yours was discussed and what was decided.
A second opinion from a centre that treats many similar cases is normal, not rude; the standard of care tells you what to compare it against.
Each row is a setting from the standard of care, in the order it usually arises. Not all will apply to you; your stage and biomarkers decide which do. The guideline grade, where recorded, says how strong the evidence is.
Biennial endoscopy from age 40 in Korea and from 50 in Japan; risk-based screening for people of East Asian origin and with atrophic gastritis elsewhere.
Endoscopic submucosal dissection with en bloc resection and pathological assessment of depth, margins and lymphovascular invasion.
Gastrectomy with D1+ lymph node dissection, laparoscopic or robotic (KLASS-01, JCOG0912).
Helicobacter pylori eradication and annual endoscopic surveillance for metachronous cancer; no adjuvant chemotherapy for stage I.
Generated from this cancer's standard of care, biomarkers and open problems. Take the group that matches where you are. To tick, add your own and print, open the one-page appointment sheet.
Much of what helps in the first weeks is free if you know to ask: testing, helplines, rides and lodging, second opinions, trial travel.
Every term links to the glossary.