Clinicopathology and prognosis of mucinous gastric carcinoma.
OBJECTIVE
Mucinous gastric carcinoma (MGC) is a rare histopathological type of gastric carcinoma, for which the clinicopathological features and prognosis remain controversial. To clarify the clinical significance of mucinous histological type in gastric cancer, we studied clinicopathological characteristics of MGC tumors and prognosis of patients.


METHODS
Forty-one patients with MGC and 1,407 patients with non-mucinous gastric carcinoma (NGC) were included in the study. Tumors were evaluated against patient gender and age, tumor location, size, and macroscopic type, depth of gastric wall invasion, lymph node metastasis, liver metastasis, peritoneal dissemination, distant metastasis, stage, and operative curability.


RESULTS
Compared with NGC tumors, MGC tumors were larger, showed more serosal invasion, were associated with a higher incidence of lymph node metastasis, and peritoneal dissemination, and tended to be at a more advanced stage. However, multivariate analysis demonstrated that the mucinous histological type was neither an independent prognostic factor nor an independent risk factor for lymph node metastasis in patients with gastric cancer.


CONCLUSIONS
The mucinous histological type had no influence on patient outcome or the frequency of lymph node metastasis. MGC tumors are therefore biologically similar to those in NGC.
Hidaka
Shigekazu
S
Division of Surgical Oncology, Department of Translational Medical Sciences, Nagasaki University Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Nagasaki, Japan.
Tanaka
Kenji
K
Takeshita
Hiroaki
H
Sumida
Yorihisa
Y
Fukuoka
Hidetoshi
H
Abo
Takafumi
T
Yano
Hiroshi
H
Nanashima
Atsushi
A
Sawai
Terumitsu
T
Yasutake
Toru
T
Nagayasu
Takeshi
T
D002288:Adenocarcinoma, Mucinous / Q000401:mortality* / Q000473:pathology* / Q000556:secondary; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008207:Lymphatic Metastasis; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011379:Prognosis; D013274:Stomach Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality* / Q000473:pathology*; D015996:Survival Rate