Published online May 6, 2020. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v8.i9.1608
Peer-review started: February 22, 2020
First decision: March 18, 2020
Revised: March 26, 2020
Accepted: April 24, 2020
Article in press: April 24, 2020
Published online: May 6, 2020
Processing time: 67 Days and 23.4 Hours
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.
To evaluate the outcomes regarding advanced gastric cancer development according to sex and age.
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.
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.
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.
Core tip: Understanding the association between age and the survival rate for gastric cancer might be helpful to clarify the prognostic value of age and potentially improve treatment efficacy. However, few studies have evaluated the effects of sex or age on gastric cancer outcomes, especially for advanced gastric cancer. Thus, we evaluated the relationships of age and sex with advanced gastric cancer outcomes in 2005 patients at our center.