Surgery to relieve symptoms of stomach cancer

Even if your cancer is advanced and can't be cured, you may need surgery to relieve symptoms. This is called palliative surgery. The operation your surgeon offers to do will vary depending on

• The size of your cancer
• Where the cancer is
• Your general health and fitness
• Your symptoms

Sometimes stomach cancer can grow so that it blocks, or partly blocks, the passage of food through your digestive system. This can cause

• Feeling full after eating only small amounts
• Pain
• Sickness and vomiting
• Constipation

To relieve these symptoms, or stop them getting worse, you may have a 

• Stent
• Bypass surgery or removal of part of your stomach

Stent

If the cancer is blocking the entrance or exit to the stomach you are most likely to have a stent. A stent is a thin flexible tube that can relieve a blockage or keep open an area that is being squashed closed by a tumour. You can have stents put in using endoscopy and X-ray guidance. 

You usually have this as an outpatient. You have sedation for the procedure to make you sleepy. So you will need to take someone with you to the hospital to help you get home afterwards. The procedure itself only takes about half an hour or so but you are likely to be in hospital for most of the day. The stent can stay in place permanently. But occasionally it can move slightly. If this happens the stent does not generally need to be removed but you may have a new one put in.

Your doctor may also offer you chemotherapy to help shrink the cancer and relieve symptoms. If your cancer has a large amount of a protein called HER2, you may have a biological therapy called trastuzumab (Herceptin) with chemotherapy. There is information about Herceptin on the page about biological therapy for stomach cancer.

Bypass surgery or removal of part of your stomach

You may have surgery to remove part of your stomach (partial gastrectomy) to relieve a blockage. There is information about partial gastrectomy on the page about surgery to remove stomach cancer.

If you are not fit enough to have this surgery you may have a bypass operation. A bypass involves attaching part of the stomach above the blockage directly to the first part of the small bowel (duodenum). The food can then move through the digestive system to the bowel. The page about having your operation tells you in detail what it is like to have stomach surgery.

Both of these are big operations and you have to be fit enough to have them. It is important that the benefit you get will be greater than the possible complications of having an operation. Your surgeon will weigh up the risks and benefits in your case before suggesting surgery and will talk these through with you. These operations are generally not used as much now as having a stent and chemotherapy treatment.

It is important that you know all your options for treatment. Your doctor and clinical nurse specialist will discuss them with you. You may want to talk over the possibility of having an operation with your close family and friends as well as your doctor and nurse. Do ask any questions that you have. Before appointments it often helps to write down a list of questions that you want to ask. 

There is also information about relieving the symptoms of advanced stomach cancer in the treating stomach cancer section.