Most of the patients with gastric carcinoma have advanced tumors and, despite a high rate of R0 resections, 20% of the resections are still palliative (R1/R2). In our series of resectable gastric carcinoma, 20.8% of patients had a palliative resection with a postoperative morbidity and mortality of 33% and 5% respectively, and the median survival of the patients was 17 months (5-year survival: 9%). Although survival is poor, the indication for a palliative resection in gastric carcinoma may be given in patients with pressing symptoms (e.g. dysphagia, gastric obstruction) and in cases with advanced disease when multimodal treatment strategies are not possible due to comorbidity.