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The recent shift in the population from patients presenting with gastric cancer to patients presenting with early-stage lesions has led to renewed interest in identifying prognostic factors for this type of tumor. Conveniently for surgeons, prognostic factors can be divided into groups that are assessed preoperatively, intraoperatively, and postoperatively. Despite the explosion of interest in genetic and molecular markers for gastric cancer, the feature best correlated with patient survival continues to be tumor stage at the time of diagnosis.

Two cases of systemic lupus erythematosus in association with primary gastric adenocarcinoma are presented. A pathological analysis of the two cases of gastric cancer does not support the hypothesis that lupus and its associated vasculitis is involved in the pathogenesis of gastric carcinoma. A critical review of the literature reveals numerous case reports suggesting the association of systemic lupus erythematosus with various malignancies; however, there is no definitive study which substantiates the association of gastric or other cancers with lupus. Future studies will be required to assess appropriately the possibility of an association between lupus and cancer.