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World J Gastrointest Oncol. Nov 15, 2018; 10(11): 398-409
Published online Nov 15, 2018. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v10.i11.398
Conversion surgery for gastric cancer patients: A review
Tommaso Zurleni, Elson Gjoni, Michele Altomare, Stefano Rausei
Tommaso Zurleni, Elson Gjoni, Michele Altomare, Department of Surgery, ASST Valle Olona, Busto Arsizio 21052, Italy
Stefano Rausei, Department of Surgery, ASST Valle Olona, Gallarate. 21013, Italy
Author contributions: Zurleni T and Rausei S designed the study, edited and revised the manuscript; Zurleni T, Gjoni E and Altomare M reviewed the literature and drafted the study; all authors equally contributed to this paper for the final approval of the final version.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors stated they have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Tommaso Zurleni, MD, Doctor, Surgeon, Department of Surgery, ASST Valle Olona, Piazzale Solaro 3, Busto Arsizio 21052, Italy. tzurleni@yahoo.it
Telephone: +39-331-699716
Received: June 27, 2018
Peer-review started: July 1, 2018
First decision: July 17, 2018
Revised: September 25, 2018
Accepted: October 7, 2018
Article in press: October 7, 2018
Published online: November 15, 2018
Processing time: 141 Days and 5.2 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Conversion surgery is defined as a surgical treatment with the goal of R0 resection in initially unresectable gastric cancer patients after response to chemotherapy. Although the heterogeneity of metastatic disease factors makes it difficult to identify true prognostic variables, a survival benefit has been demonstrated in several reports. Further prospective large-scale studies seem to be necessary to improve patient selection and to validate this promising multimodal therapy.