Early cancer of the stomach (i.e. cancer confined to the mucosa or sub-mucosa with or without lymph node metastases) warrants aggressive follow-up as local recurrence in these patients is sometimes curable and there is a risk of a second primary. Curatively resected patients should have endoscopy at six months then one year later and then at two to three year intervals. As these cancers have a high recurrence rate post resection and may have surgery related problems, patients should be followed for support and symptom control. Routine physical examination of the patients should be carried out every three months for the first year and then every six months thereafter until the fifth year post-op. No diagnostic imaging or laboratory investigations have been shown to be useful in following up these patients to detect curable recurrences.

Patients with distal or total gastrectomies require life-long parenteral vitamin B12 replacement.