Follow-up: the evidence

There is currently no consensus on the best strategy for the follow-up of patients who have undergone surgical treatment with curative intent for gastric cancer. The wide variation in recommendations for surveillance among international experts and hospital schedules clearly reflects a lack of an established body of evidence on this subject. Consequently, most of the international guidelines aimed at early detection of disease recurrence gloss over details concerning the mode, duration, and intensity of surveillance since they cannot be based on an acceptable grade of recommendation. Very few report anything other than the detection of recurrences or death as the primary endpoints, and, given the poor survival of patients with recurrent gastric cancer, the prognostic effect of early detection seems doubtful. In recent years, an increasing focus on evidence-based medicine, which has coincided with a growing concern about costs and efficiency in medicine, has caused a reevaluation of most surveillance practices. In this paper, we review and discuss the current body of evidence and follow-up practices after curative resection of gastric cancer.