A South Korean research team has developed the world’s first model to predict the recurrence of stomach cancer.

A research team at Severance Hospital says it has developed a way to predict whether stomach cancer will return to a patient. The method was used on 65 patients who had already undegone surgery for stomach cancer.

If this research is used widely in the future, only the patients with a higher likelihood of recurrence will need anticancer treatment. Currently, all patients must undergo CT scans and endoscopies every three months, as stomach cancer has a high rate of recurrence.

This research paper has been published in the prestigious journal, Clinical Cancer Research.