Japanese patients stay in hospital for some time after their operation. They find it reassuring that in the convalescent phase of their recovery they will be close to the staff who know them and their operation well. In this respect Japanese patients remain in hospital for some weeks. I learned a great deal even in the short time that I was there. Mostly I learned that a lot of what I already knew was true.
Gastric cancer is a curable disease.
It can be diagnosed early and can even be resected endoscopically in some cases. Even where a conventional operation is necessary the chances of cure are high if the correct operation is performed. Morbidity and mortality are low. I realised that lymph nodes and lymphatic channels do act as filters to slow and trap the migration of neoplastic cells from the stomach to the systemic circulation and that their removal does protect from recurrence. This too was in contrast to what I had been taught at medical school-that removal of lymph nodes did not confer any survival advantage but was performed to allow staging of the neoplasm.