The scientific material collected in this book is made up of the lectures delivered at a Postgraduate Course in Surgical Oncology, that was held in Verona (Italy) September 21 through 23, 1989. The Course was attended by the most distinguished surgeons working in the field of gastric cancer all over the world. Thanks to this meeting, the treatment oif gastric cancer has undergone a major transformation. A new surgical approach based on the staging of cancer has now supplanted the former School choices and standardized treatments, that still, however, provided us with many starting points for our evaluation. Our Japanese colleagues who attended the meeting had stressed the importance of pre- and intraoperative staging of gastric carcinoma for some time. Furthermore, it is to their credit to have evaluated the extension of resection and prognosis on the basis of staging. Highly significant also are the European contributions, that have allowed us to know the state of the art in the treatment of this disease in every European country.