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Right and left paracardial dissection represents an obligatory step in gastrectomy for gastric cancer of the lower half of the stomach because a second-level lymphadenectomy is part of the radical surgery for malignancy at this site. Whereas right and left paracardial dissection is easily accomplished during total gastrectomy, there is doubt as to whether subtotal gastrectomy achieves the same radical clearance of these groups of lymph nodes. This study therefore compared the number of lymph nodes dissected and the frequency of metastases in these compartments in 14 patients undergoing total gastrectomy and 22 submitted to subtotal gastrectomy. The mean number of lymph nodes dissected in the right paracardial compartment was 7.1 per patient undergoing total gastrectomy and 6.7 per patient in subtotal gastrectomy (P= 0.7). The mean numbers of left paracardial lymph nodes dissected in total and subtotal gastrectomy were 3.4 and 4.1 per patient respectively (P= 0.3). These data show that the same degree of radical clearance can be achieved in these nodal compartments, irrespective of the extent of gastric resection.