Dear Colleagues,

Gastric cancer is an important public health problem in our country as well as all over the world. Unfortunately, in countries that do not have screening programs for gastric cancer, it is diagnosed at advanced stages, resulting in poor survival. Surgical treatment is the cornerstone of its treatment, and nowadays it is of great importance to handle the treatment in a multidisciplinary manner.

Our respected experienced surgeons who are devoted to gastric cancer surgery in our country have worked in this field for many years and have made great efforts to develop gastric cancer surgery. We have started working on gastric cancer surgery since 2004, and with the hospital facilities we work in and the devoted participation of our experienced general surgeon and participants from all over Turkiye, a live surgery broadcast was made in Izmir in 2012 with Japanese surgeon Mitsuru Sasako who one of the leading authors of gastric cancer surgery. These meetings, held as the Stomach Cancer Surgery Symposium, continued under the same conditions and with the same dedication in 2016, 2018, and 2020. In the ongoing process, we had the opportunity to increase our communication with the valuable members of the International Gastric Cancer Association (IGCA), of which we are a member, at the International Gastric Cancer Congresses (IGCC) we attended. Strengthened by our communication with them, we decided to continue our scientific meetings as a symposium as a multidisciplinary congress, and we successfully held the I. International Turkish Gastric Cancer Congress in October 2022. We continue to work hard to hold the second congress in October 2024, in which respected scientists from around the world, especially our valuable friends from Japan and Italy, will attend.

Establishing a gastric cancer surgery association in our country has been in question for many years, but it has not been realized until now. While there are reputable and widely attended associations in the field of surgery, it has also been questioned whether it is necessary. However, as a result of the information exchange and evaluations we made with our very valuable surgeons from across our country, we came to the point of establishing a multidisciplinary gastric cancer association in our country. We established our association by quickly starting our work and completing it in a short time. The aim of the association is to increase the survival of patients with stomach cancer by conducting studies on stomach cancer prevention, screening programs, early diagnosis, appropriate surgery, and medical treatment. In addition, another goal of ours is to cooperate with international organizations, especially IGCA, in scientific studies and education.

My dear professors, my dear the young expert friends, I would like to thank you very much for the work we have done since 2012 with the support of our esteemed associations and the devoted support of our experienced and participants from all over our country. As the management of the association, I offer my respects to work with the same cooperation and cooperation in the multidisciplinary field.

Hoping to quickly structure and keep this association alive together...

Prof. Dr. Enver İLHAN

Chairman of the Board of Directors