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COMMENT

Professor Siewert and his colleagues have as extensivean experience with gastric cancer as any surgical group inthe western world. It is fair to say that their series of 1,348resected gastro-esophageal junction cancers is truly a goldmine for studying the nuances of the biology of theanatomic subsets of cancer in this location. This hugepatient population, which they have studied so thoroughlyand well, has given us some clear-cut answers to many

intriguing questions, both biologic and therapeutic.Surgeons working in this area can now formulate treatmentstrategies, in regard to choice of esophagectomy and/orgastrectomy, with much more precision than before.

Walter Lawrence, Jr., MD

Guest Editor

DOI 10.1002/jso.20219

Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com).

146 Siewert et al.

� 2005 Wiley-Liss, Inc.