Gastric carcinoma: does lymph node dissection alter survival?

Extragastric lymphadenectomy (D2 node dissection) is strongly supported by Japanese data to have survival benefit. Randomized trial data are either inconclusive or nonsupportive of this view. We have reviewed a prospectively gathered database of 18,346 cases of gastric carcinoma from a gastric cancer patient care evaluation study conducted by the American College of Surgeons to assess whether the performance of extragastric node dissection was associated with improved survival in patients who had resection with curative intent (all margins microscopically clear).

We reviewed a subgroup of patients with curatively resected gastric carcinoma and compared the outcome in patients having extragastric lymph node dissection with the outcome in patients who did not have dissection of N2 nodes.

Among the 3,804 patients having curative resection in the long-term study with more than a five-year follow-up, 695 had dissection of the nodes along the celiac axis, hepatic artery, or splenic artery (N2 nodes); 1,529 patients had removal of the adjacent nodes (N1 nodes) along the gastric tube or the gastric or perigastric nodes (N1 nodes); and 903 patients who had no nodes identified in the resection specimen (essentially N0 nodes removed). For patients having a dissection of N2 nodes, the median survival time was 19.7 months with a five-year survival rate of 26.3 percent; for patients having a dissection of N1 nodes, the median survival time was 24.8 months with a five-year survival rate of 30 percent; among patients having no nodes removed, the median survival time was 29.5 months with a five-year survival rate of 35.6 percent.

Lymph node dissection (D2) of N2 nodes did not augment survival compared with gastrectomy without node dissection or that included perigastric nodes in the resection. Subgroup analysis of patients with gastric carcinoma having a curative resection did not show benefit of the extragastric node dissection (D2). Continued study is warranted and the data from ongoing clinical trials may yield more conclusive information.