Risk factors predictive of lymph node metastasis in depressed early gastric cancer.
BACKGROUND
This study was conducted to identify risk factors predictive of regional lymph node metastasis in depressed early gastric cancer and further to establish an objective criterion useful to indicate additional surgical treatment in cases in which submucosal tumor extension becomes evident by endoscopic mucosal resection (EMR).


METHODS
Data from 276 patients surgically treated for depressed early gastric cancer were collected, and the relationship between the patient and tumor characteristics, and the lymph node metastasis was retrospectively evaluated by multivariate analysis.


RESULTS
In the multivariate logistic regression model, female sex, a larger tumor size (20 mm or more), submucosal invasion, and presence of lymphatic vessel involvement were found to be independent risk factors for lymph node metastasis. Among 145 patients with submucosally invasive carcinoma, no lymph node metastasis was observed in patients who showed none of the other three risk factors, whereas 14.3% and 23.3% of patients with one and two of these factors had lymph node metastasis, respectively. The lymph node metastasis rate was calculated to be 86.7% in patients who had all three factors.


CONCLUSIONS
Submucosal invasion, female sex, tumor size of 20 mm or more, and lymphatic vessel involvement were significantly and independently related to the presence of lymph node metastasis in depressed early gastric cancer. The positive number of the latter three risk factors is a simple criterion to indicate additional surgical treatment in cases with submucosal invasion revealed first by EMR.
Abe
Nobutsugu
N
First Department of Surgery, Kyorin University School of Medicine, Mitaka, Tokyo, Japan. abenbtg@kyorin-u.ac.jp
Watanabe
Takashi
T
Suzuki
Kazufumi
K
Machida
Hiromichi
H
Toda
Hiroshi
H
Nakaya
Yuzo
Y
Masaki
Tadahiko
T
Mori
Toshiyuki
T
Sugiyama
Masanori
M
Atomi
Yutaka
Y
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D005743:Gastrectomy; D005773:Gastroscopy; D006801:Humans; D008197:Lymph Node Excision; D008207:Lymphatic Metastasis / Q000473:pathology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D009361:Neoplasm Invasiveness; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012307:Risk Factors; D012737:Sex Factors; D013274:Stomach Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology* / Q000601:surgery