[Gastric adenocarcinoma in young adults; comparative study with older patients]

Gastric adenocarcinoma (GA) has been considered a disease of elderly age and has been rarely reported in patients younger than 35 years of age. The aim of thisΩ demographic, clinicopathological and prognosis of gastric cancer in young patients and to compare their features with the behavior in elder adults.

Between 1993 and 2008, 1536 patients with GA were enrolled in a retrospective database. Clinical and pathologic features of thirty patients aged 35 years or less (young group) were compared with those of 458 aged 75 years or more (elder group).

Mean patient age was 31 and 80-years old in the young and elder groups, respectively, with a predominance of females in the last group (61%). Lauren diffuse type carcinoma was more frequent in people younger than 35 years (70%) than in older patients (17.4%). Main symptoms were dyspepsia (40%) and hemorrhage (20%). The most common T stage in young and elder patients was T3 (52.9% and 56.7% respectively). Surgical resection was performed in 68% of cases and the rest received only systemic chemotherapy.

Gastric adenocarcinoma is rare in young patients and most cases presented at advanced clinical stage similar to elderly patients, so the prognosis in both age groups is poor. For this reason is important to be aware of alarm symptoms and risk factors in order to perform an early endoscopic diagnosis and a treatment with curative intent.