Background: We evaluated the influence of several clinicopathological variables on 5 year survival of patients with node-negative gastric cancer.
Patients and methods: Clinical characteristics were retrieved from the records of all patients who underwent gastric resection between 1985 and 1995 at the Department of General Surgery, Sendai National Hospital, and follow-up data were obtained from our tumor registry. Pathological characteristics were determined from a detailed review of all available histopathological slides. The results of a retrospective analysis of clinicopathological data of 339 patients having no lymph node metastasis were compared with those of 358 patients with lymph node metastasis. Univariate and multivariate analyses of patients with node-negative gastric cancer were performed to evaluate the prognostic significance of clinicopathological features (age, gender, gross type, histological type, depth of invasion and location).
Results: The 5 year survival rate for patients with node-negative gastric cancer was 92.5%. Node-negative gastric cancers were characterized by a smaller tumor, expansive and medullary histological type, and less frequency of lymphatic invasion and vascular permeation. In multivariate analysis, the statistical significant prognostic factors were tumor size (P = 0.0185), vascular permeation (P = 0.0011) and cancer-stromal relationship (P = 0.0291).
Conclusion: Tumor size, vascular microinvasion and cancer-stromal relationship are the most reliable predictors of 5 year survival for patients with node-negative gastric cancer.