Clinicopathologic features of gastric cancer in young patients

Gastric cancer (GC) is considered to be a disease of elderly patients. It has been suggested that GC in young adults has more aggressive clinical and pathologic features than in adults. In this study we aimed to evaluate clinical and pathologic features of GC under age 40 years.

Patients included in this study were those treated and followed up for GC under age 40 years in Ankara Numune Education and Research Hospital from 2002 to 2011.

Clinical and pathologic features of 82 patients have been evaluated retrospectively. Of the patients 44 were male (54%) and 38 were (46%) female, and the median age was 35 years (min-max: 18-40 years). The tumor was grade 3 in 77% of the patients, 79% had diffuse type tumor, 64% had lymphovascular invasion, and 76% had perineural invasion. Forty-seven patients (57%) were metastatic at the time of diagnosis. The median follow up was 9 (1-101) months. The median overall survival (OS) was 9 months in metastatic patients and 8-year OS was 64% in nonmetastatic patients.

We observed that young GC patients had more aggressive histopathologic features and more than half was metastatic at the time of diagnosis. We need more studies comparing young and elderly patients to confirm that young patients had more aggressive disease.