Stomach cancer care at Mayo Clinic

Doctor-patient consultation

Mayo Clinic doctors are respected for their expertise and experience in caring for people with stomach cancer. When you seek care at Mayo Clinic, you have access to a team of top-ranked doctors who are experts in gastroenterology, oncology and other specialties.

Mayo Clinic has been recognized as a top cancer hospital by U.S. News & World Report since it began publishing rankings in 1990. Most recently, Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, and Mayo Clinic in Phoenix/Scottsdale, Arizona, have been recognized among the top Cancer hospitals in the nation for 2024-2025 by U.S. News & World Report.

Nationally recognized expertise

Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, has been recognized as the best gastroenterology and GI surgery hospital in the nation by U.S. News & World Report in every year since 1990 when the rankings were first established.

Learn more about Mayo Clinic's expertise and top rankings in gastroenterology and oncology.

Your Mayo Clinic care team

Mayo Clinic Connect: Cancer

At Mayo Clinic, doctors from many specialties work as a team to provide comprehensive care for people with stomach cancer. Your care team may include:

  • Medical oncologists
  • Gastroenterologists
  • Radiation oncologists
  • General surgeons
  • Thoracic surgeons
  • Pathologists
  • Dietitians
  • Medical geneticists
  • Occupational therapists
  • Palliative care experts
  • Pharmacologists
  • Physical therapists
  • Social workers

Other specialists can be included as needed.

Advanced diagnosis and treatment

The top-ranked gastroenterologists at Mayo Clinic use advanced endoscopic ultrasound techniques to accurately identify the stage of your cancer. Your care team has access to the latest imaging techniques, such as PET/MRI scans, to help detect cancer and determine its extent.

At Mayo Clinic, you have access to a full range of treatments, including the latest treatment advances. Your care team will work with you to review your treatment options and develop a treatment plan that best suits your needs and goals.

Treatment options at Mayo Clinic include:

  • A full range of treatment options. Your treatment team includes doctors from many specialties so that all of the treatment options are considered when making your treatment plan. Options might include endoscopic mucosal resection, surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, targeted therapy, immunotherapy, hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC) and others.
  • Minimally invasive surgery. Mayo Clinic surgeons are skilled in all surgical techniques, including minimally invasive surgery, esophagectomy, subtotal gastrectomy and total gastrectomy.
  • Highly targeted radiation therapy. Mayo Clinic radiation oncologists are skilled in using proton beam therapy to treat cancer. This newer type of radiation therapy uses a highly targeted precision beam to treat cancers located close to critical organs and body structures.
  • Carefully selected systemic therapy. The top-ranked oncologists at Mayo Clinic carefully select targeted therapy and immunotherapy treatments that are most likely to work against your cancer. Pathologists use next-generation sequencing to analyze cancer cells so treatment can be tailored for people with advanced stomach cancer.
  • Access to the latest treatments. People who seek care at Mayo Clinic have access to clinical trials studying the latest treatments for stomach cancer.

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Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center: Surgical treatments for stomach cancer

Travis E. Grotz, M.D., Surgical Oncologist: At Mayo Clinic, we treat all types of stomach cancer. One of the most common types of stomach cancer is the diffuse type, or sometimes called signet ring cell type. And what's unique about that type of stomach cancer is it's kind of lost its ability to stick together, the cancer cells. And so it doesn't form a nice lump or a ball that we can see on an imaging test or on endoscopy. And so that's hard to diagnose. It's hard to stage and understand where the tumor really is and what, where it spread to.

Cornelius A. Thiels, D.O., M.B.A., Surgical Oncologist: Gastric cancer, particularly in the U.S., can often present a more advanced stage. And sometimes even metastatic, meaning it's already spread outside of the stomach when patients are diagnosed with it. Traditionally that's been very difficult to treat and typically not considered curable. We now have tried to develop new protocols and treatment strategies to treat these more advanced tumors.

Michael L. Kendrick, M.D., Surgical Oncologist: We put a lot of effort into each of the multispecialty areas that interact with gastric cancer to keep on the cutting edge.

Dr. Grotz: Every patient, when they come here with stomach cancer, is evaluated by an entire team of experts.

Dr. Thiels: At Mayo, we tend to try to use the most advanced imaging we can in both diagnosing and surveilling people with cancers. When it comes to diagnosis, we think that it's beneficial to use modalities like PET scans and CT scans, when indicated, to try to get a really good understanding of the type of cancer a patient has, where it's spread to, or other organs it's involving. And so we can develop a treatment plan tailored to that individual patient.

Dr. Grotz: A lot of patients will come here initially, get that full work-up and evaluation, kind of get the master plan from the whole team. And then they often will go home, receive their chemotherapy close to home, where they have all their support system, and then come back for surgery or radiations and other kind of treatment.

Dr. Kendrick: Treatment of gastric cancer has changed a lot in the last few decades.

Dr. Grotz: Some of the innovative treatment options for patients with stomach cancer include endoscopic removal of early tumors. We also have minimally invasive surgery, both robotic and laparoscopic surgery, to decrease pain and a shorter hospital length of stays, quicker return to eating, quicker recovery, less complications and blood loss.

Dr. Kendrick: For those with very advanced disease, from a surgical point of view, we're even more aggressive and able to treat certain locally advanced tumors that we couldn't before.

Dr. Thiels: And that's because we have all the specialists to do more advanced surgeries, to resect multiple organs if we need to. And then we also have a protocol to treat patients with disease that spread outside of the stomach to the peritoneum.

Dr. Grotz: We've developed a kind of a pathway here of treatment with systemic chemo and also chemotherapy that's given directly into the abdomen that we can get some patients to potentially curative surgery. And so where some of these patients may not have had really any hope before, now we're offering patients hope at long-term survival.

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The Mayo Clinic experience and patient stories

Our patients tell us that the quality of their interactions, our attention to detail and the efficiency of their visits mean health care like they've never experienced. See the stories of satisfied Mayo Clinic patients.

Expertise and rankings

Doctor-patient consultation

Mayo Clinic doctors are widely respected for their expertise and experience in caring for people with stomach cancer. When you seek care at Mayo Clinic, you can expect:

  • Personalized care. At Mayo Clinic, medical oncologists, gastroenterologists, radiation oncologists, general surgeons, thoracic surgeons, pathologists and pharmacologists work as a multidisciplinary team to provide comprehensive care for those with stomach cancer.
  • Experience you can trust. Mayo Clinic doctors have extensive experience treating stomach cancer, including cancer that affects the gastroesophageal junction. Each year, doctors at Mayo Clinic care for more than 900 people with stomach cancer.
  • Nationally recognized expertise. Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center meets the strict standards for a National Cancer Institute comprehensive cancer center. These standards recognize scientific excellence and a multispecialty approach focused on cancer prevention, diagnosis and treatment.

Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, and Mayo Clinic in Phoenix/Scottsdale, Arizona, are ranked among the Best Hospitals for cancer by U.S. News & World Report.

Locations, travel and lodging

Mayo Clinic has major campuses in Phoenix and Scottsdale, Arizona; Jacksonville, Florida; and Rochester, Minnesota. The Mayo Clinic Health System has dozens of locations in several states.

For more information on visiting Mayo Clinic, choose your location below:

Costs and insurance

Mayo Clinic works with hundreds of insurance companies and is an in-network provider for millions of people.

In most cases, Mayo Clinic doesn't require a physician referral. Some insurers require referrals or may have additional requirements for certain medical care. All appointments are prioritized on the basis of medical need.

Learn more about appointments at Mayo Clinic.

Please contact your insurance company to verify medical coverage and to obtain any needed authorization prior to your visit. Often, your insurer's customer service number is printed on the back of your insurance card.

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Mayo Clinic in Arizona, Florida and Minnesota

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June 19, 2024

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