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Stomach cancer

On this page: resources published by other organisations, then the research assessed for this site.

This page points at research, and at resources published by other organisations. It is not advice about your own care or treatment.

Published by other organisations

4 booklets and reports published by other organisations. These belong to whoever wrote them and are not hosted here.

The library groups these together with liver cancer and pancreatic cancer, so some of what follows is about those rather than about stomach cancer. Each one is titled by its own publisher.

Research

4 papers on stomach cancer, from the research assessed for this site. Each is summarised below in words written for this site, not the authors’ own.

  1. Equity of timely access to liver and stomach cancer surgery for Indigenous patients in New Zealand: A national cohort study (opens on the publisher’s website)

    BMJ Open · 2022

    Jason Gurney, Diana Sarfati, James Stanley, Clarence Kerrison, Jonathan Koea

    What it found
    Maaori and European patients had similar overall rates of curative surgery for both cancers, but access diverged on specific procedures. For liver cancer, Maaori patients were about 66% less likely than European patients to receive a transplant (adjusted OR 0.33, 95% CI 0.19-0.60). For stomach cancer, Maaori patients were around twice as likely to have a palliative bypass procedure (enteroenterostomy) rather than curative surgery (adjusted OR 1.98, 95% CI 1.31-2.99). Only around a third of all liver cancer patients, Maaori or European, had documented surgical treatment of any kind.
    How it was done
    national cohort study using linked NZ Cancer Registry and National Minimum Dataset records, 2007-2019; 866 Maaori vs 2,460 European liver cancer patients, 953 Maaori vs 3,192 European stomach cancer patients
    Why it matters
    It shows the inequity for these two cancers sits inside specific treatment decisions - who gets a transplant, who gets a curative resection versus a palliative bypass - rather than in whether surgery happens at all.
    What it does not settle
    Registry-based analysis; the paper cannot say why the transplant and bypass gaps exist, only that they exist.

    Full textFull text, via BMJ Open, which is open access.

    Read it free: Equity of timely access to liver and stomach cancer surgery for Indigenous patients in New Zealand: A national cohort study (opens on another organisation’s website)DOI 10.1136/bmjopen-2021-058749

  2. Equity of travel required to access first definitive surgery for liver or stomach cancer in New Zealand (opens on the publisher’s website)

    PLOS ONE · 2022

    Jason Gurney, Jesse Whitehead, Clarence Kerrison, James Stanley, Diana Sarfati, Jonathan Koea

    What it found
    For liver cancer, Maaori patients travelled much further for surgery than European patients: a median 121km versus 56km, and a median 123 minutes versus 59 minutes. Maaori patients were more likely to travel over 200km (36% versus 29%, adjusted OR 1.48, 95% CI 1.09-2.01). For stomach cancer the paper found no significant difference in travel distance between the two groups, both travelling a median of around 21-22km.
    How it was done
    national registry analysis using GIS to calculate travel distance and time, 2007-2019; same cohort as the companion surgery-access paper - 866 Maaori vs 2,460 European liver cancer patients, 953 Maaori vs 3,192 European stomach cancer patients
    Why it matters
    Travel burden for liver cancer surgery falls unevenly on Maaori patients specifically, while stomach cancer - where surgery is more geographically distributed - shows no such gap, pointing to where centralised care creates an access cost.
    What it does not settle
    Registry-based, distance calculated by GIS rather than reported by patients; does not capture cost, time off work or whether a patient travelled with whaanau.

    Full textFull text, via PLOS ONE, which is open access.

    Read it free: Equity of travel required to access first definitive surgery for liver or stomach cancer in New Zealand (opens on another organisation’s website)DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0269593

  3. Ethnic Inequity in the Current Approach to H. pylori Testing and Treatment: Linked Data Cohort Analysis (opens on the publisher’s website)

    What it found
    H. pylori testing rates were lowest for Māori and Pacific people compared with sole-European, even though positivity when tested was higher for Pacific, MELAA and Māori. Treatment rates were broadly similar across groups but lower for Pacific people, who also had lower retesting rates. The authors describe the current opportunistic approach to testing as itself a driver of these gaps.
    How it was done
    retrospective linked cohort analysis, 7,024,858 person-years, 89,067 first H. pylori tests
    Why it matters
    Gastric cancer already carries some of the widest ethnic mortality gaps in the country, and this paper traces part of that gap back to who gets tested for its main modifiable risk factor in the first place.
    What it does not settle
    The authors note undercounting of Māori in the health service user data, no ability to capture private (non-publicly funded) testing, and limited breakdown within ethnic subgroups.

    Full textFull text, via PMC (PMC11718595).

  4. Stage at diagnosis for Māori cancer patients, disparities, similarities and data limitations (opens on the publisher’s website)

    What it found
    An analysis of New Zealand Cancer Registry records for 196,967 patients diagnosed between 2007 and 2016, checked against separate clinical audit data for breast, colon, rectal, lung and stomach cancer. Māori patients were less likely to be diagnosed with localised disease for several cancers, most markedly prostate (odds ratio 0.50) and lung (odds ratio 0.53), though this did not hold for every cancer type. The registry also understated how many patients had no recorded stage: clinical audits found 38% of Māori lung cancer patients were unstaged, well above what the registry showed. A survival gap between Māori and non-Māori remained even after accounting for stage.
    How it was done
    retrospective registry analysis cross-checked against clinical audit data, 196,967 patients, 2007–2016
    Why it matters
    The registry undercounting missing stage data means Māori cancer outcomes cannot be fully monitored from that registry alone, which is a data problem sitting underneath the clinical one.
    What it does not settle
    Built from the abstract, so detail beyond the stated results and the headline odds ratios has not been seen.

    Abstract onlyAbstract only, via the NZMJ journal page.

How this page was put together

The research summaries

Each summary was written for this site, and it is not the authors’ own abstract. None of it has been reviewed by Hei Āhuru Mōwai. Of the papers listed here, 3 were read in full and 1 only as an abstract. Each entry carries the note of what was read, because a summary built from an abstract carries less weight than one built from the paper.

Resources published by other organisations

Each one opens a record on this site naming the publisher, carrying their own note about the edition and about how they are funded where they give one. The document itself is on the publisher’s website. None of it is hosted here, and it remains theirs.

Which of these appear, and how they are grouped, is a choice made for this site. It is not Hei Āhuru Mōwai’s view on what any of them says.

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