Stomach Cancer Testing 

Diagnosis Of Stomach Cancer

When signs and symptoms of stomach cancer begin to appear, you are likely to ask your doctor how do I know if I have stomach cancer. Your doctor will reply that stomach cancer testing is available and with the help of several diagnostic tools, he or she can make a stomach cancer diagnosis if cancer is present.

The main type of stomach cancer testing is endoscopy. In this procedure, the patient is sedated while the doctor inserts a thin, flexible, lighted tube called an endoscope down the throat. Through the endoscope, the doctor can examine the esophagus, stomach, and part of the small intestine. If anything doesn't look normal, the doctor can take a small tissue sample for analysis.

As an alternative to endoscopy, the doctor might do imaging tests. These use x-rays, magnetic fields, sound waves, or radioactive substances to create pictures of the inside of your body. Tests use for stomach cancer diagnosis include CT, positron emission tomography (PET) and X-ray.

Exploratory surgery is another possibility, especially if there's a chance the cancer has spread to other organs or tissues (a process known as metastasis). Such surgery is typically performed with a laparoscope. The surgeon makes several small incisions in your abdomen and looks inside your abdomen using a special camera on the tip of a long, thin flexible tube. The camera provides images on a monitor which shows the doctor the tissues and organs inside your abdomen.

Importance of stomach cancer testing

One of the most important functions of stomach cancer testing is to determine what stage the cancer has reached. The stage helps your physician decide on the most appropriate course of treatment.

As mentioned in our article What Is Stomach Cancer, there have been fewer and fewer diagnoses of stomach cancer in many Western countries in the last half century, so the need for frequent stomach cancer testing has been greatly reduced.

But in many countries, stomach cancer testing is still being done routinely. This is true in some East Asian countries, especially Japan, where stomach cancer incidence is much greater than it is in the U.S.

Nonetheless, anyone with any of the risk factors for stomach cancer should be constantly vigilant for stomach cancer symptoms and signs and have stomach cancer testing done as recommended by their doctor.