Clinicopathological features of patients with middle third gastric carcinoma

To compared the prognosis of middle third gastric carcinoma (MGC) patients with those of patients with proximal/distal gastric carcinoma (PGC/DGC).

Of 3299 patients diagnosed with gastric carcinoma who underwent surgery at our hospital over a 15-year period, 919 (27.9%) were diagnosed with MGC. For each patient, the following information was obtained from hospital records: Age, sex, tumor size, depth of invasion, histologic type, nodal involvement, extent of lymph node dissection, hepatic metastasis, peritoneal dissemination, stage at initial diagnosis, operative type, curability, and survival rate.

T1 category tumors were more common in patients with MGC than in patients with PGC (P < 0.001). Tumor stage (stage I), N category (N0), and T category (T1) significantly influenced the 5-year survival rates for patients with curatively resected tumors. A multivariate analysis showed that age, tumor size, serosal invasion, lymph node metastasis, and curability were significant predictors of survival in patients with MGC. The survival rate for MGC patients was similar to that for PGC/DGC patients (52.8% vs 44.4%/51.4%, P = 0.1138). The 5-year survival rate for MGC patients with curative resection was higher than that for MGC patients with non-curative resection (62.9% vs 8.7%, P < 0.001).

These results indicate that tumor location did not affect the prognosis. Curative resection is important for improving the prognosis of patients with MGC.