Sex and Age Differences in Clinicopathological Characteristics of Gastric Cancer

Background: There is a lack of population-based and real-world data on sex and age differences in gastric cancer care. The aim of this study was to close this data gap and to analyze the sex and age differences in the clinicopathological characteristics of gastric adenocarcinoma. Methods: The analysis focused on patients diagnosed with gastric adenocarcinomas (ICD-10: C16.0-C16.9) documented in the cancer registry of the Federal State of Brandenburg from 2000 to 2020. The patient variables include sex, age at time of tumor diagnosis and the ECOG performance status. The tumor variables included location, grading, clinical TNM classification, clinical UICC stage and synchronous distant metastasis. Results: Of n = 8582 patients, 38% (n = 3263) were women. Compared with males, females had fewer adenocarcinomas located in the cardia (24.1% vs. 12.5%, p < 0.001), more signet ring cell carcinomas (13.2% vs. 22.8%, p < 0.001), more high-grade tumors (55.4% vs. 63.1%, p < 0.001) and a higher tumor cUICC stage (cUICC IV: 44.9% vs. 48.4%, p = 0.001). There was an interaction between sex and age modulating the differences between males and females. Conclusions: We were able to demonstrate several relevant prognostic differences in gastric cancer between men and women in terms of tumor location, stage, and metastases in a large patient cohort.