Gastrectomy is a surgery that removes part or all of the stomach. When just a portion of the stomach is involved, the procedure is denoted as a “partial gastectomy”. If the complete stomach is taken out, it is called a “total gastrectomy”.

This surgery is done when you are asleep under general anesthesia – pain-free. The surgeon makes an incision in the abdomen and eliminates all or part of the stomach, dependent on the reason for the procedure.

Today, many surgeons complete a gastrectomy using a camera. This surgery is done with only a few surgical incisions that are small. The benefits of this surgery, called a laparoscopy, are a quicker recovery, less pain and only a few small incisions.

Before current times, stomach surgery was typically used as an ulcer treatment, but now this process is used mainly for stomach cancer. Each year in the U.S. about 25, 000 individuals develop stomach or gastric cancer. This cancer is most common in South America and Asia. While advances have developed in managing this type of cancer, much depends on the location in the stomach the cancer starts and if the cancer is found before it spreads out of the stomach. Symptoms that might occur: bleeding; non-cancerous benign tumors; inflammation; and polyps.