Staging

Staging

The International Union Against Cancer (UICC) staging system is shown in Table 67.6 . Important changes have been made in the seventh and eighth editions of the TNM staging system that are worthy of discussion. In an attempt to reflect the current evidence base and to improve outcome prediction for individual patients, all gastric tumours whose epicentre is within 5 /uni00A0 cm of the GOJ and extend into the oesophagus are now classified according to the oesophageal system. Tumours whose epicentre is within 5 /uni00A0 cm of the GOJ but do not extend into the oesophagus, and all other gastric cancers, are staged using the revised gastric staging system. In addition, any tumour that perforates the serosa is now classified as T4 disease.