Background: Gastric cancer has a relatively high prevalence and is one of the most common causes of cancer-related death worldwide. However, the prognosis for gastric cancer remains poor, especially in the advanced stages, despite many improvements in diagnosis and treatment.
Aim: To evaluate the outcomes regarding advanced gastric cancer development according to sex and age.
Methods: We retrospectively reviewed 2005 patients who underwent curative gastrectomy for advanced gastric cancer between 2002 and 2007 at a single Korean centre. Prognosis and risk factors for nodal involvement were evaluated according to sex and age.
Results: In this retrospective cohort study, we examined the cases of 2005 patients [sex, 1384 men (69%), 621 women (31%)] with advanced gastric cancer. The patients' age range was 22-87 years (mean age: 57.7 ± 12.3 years), with approximately 53.3% of the patients being ≤ 60 years old. Based on a Cox proportional hazards model, overall survival was independently predicted by older age, larger tumour size, lymphovascular invasion, lymph node metastasis, deeper tumour invasion, moderately-to-poorly differentiated tubular adenocarcinoma, and signet ring cell carcinoma. The same model revealed that relapse-free survival was independently predicted by advanced age, larger tumour size, lymphovascular invasion, deeper tumour invasion, poorly differentiated tubular adenocarcinoma, and signet ring cell carcinoma.
Conclusion: Among patients with advanced gastric cancer, older age independently predicted poor overall survival and relapse-free survival. However, there were no significant sex-based differences in relapse-free and overall survival.
Keywords: Adenocarcinoma; Age; Carcinoma; Gastrectomy; Prognosis; Risk factors.
©The Author(s) 2020. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.