The role of surgery in gastric cancer with liver metastases: A narrative review

Gastric cancer with liver metastases is one of the most fatal diseases with a dismal prognosis.At diagnosis, 14% of patients with gastric cancer have liver metastases.The gold standard in this setting of disease is chemotherapy; surgery just serves to reduce symptoms or halt gastrointestinal bleeding.However, ongoing retrospective investigations have demonstrated the value of surgery in cases of gastric cancer with liver metastases and the significantly higher survival rate of patients randomly assigned to receive surgery with or without chemotherapy.Therefore, more and stronger evidence from prospective randomized clinical trials is required to explain surgical methods for patients with gastric cancer who have limited liver metastases.