title: Race and correlations between lymph node number and survival for patients with gastric cancer.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  There is ongoing debate whether extended lymphadenectomy improves survival in gastric cancer patients who undergo surgical resection. We previously observed that Korean-American patients had the highest overall survival in Los Angeles County. Our objective was to assess lymph node (LN) number and its impact on survival for Korean-American gastric cancer patients.
  
  
  METHODS
  We utilized the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results registry to identify Korean-Americans with gastric adenocarcinoma treated with curative-intent gastrectomy between 1988 and 2008. We grouped patients according to examined LN number (1-15 and 16+) and compared characteristics. We performed similar analysis for white patients.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Out of 982 Korean-American patients with gastric adenocarcinoma, most patients had 1-15 examined LNs (60 %). When we compared LN groups, we observed higher overall survival in the 1-15 group than the 16+ group (5-year survival, 59 % vs 52 %, respectively; p = 0.04). However, LN number was not prognostic of overall survival on stepwise Cox proportional hazards analysis. In contrast, LN number was prognostic for white patients.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Although examined LN number may impact survival for white patients, outcomes of Korean-American gastric cancer patients were independent of LN number. Our data suggest that survival of Korean-American gastric cancer patients are comparable with outcomes from East Asian hospitals and may be independent of surgical technique.
authors.affiliation: Departments of Biostatistics (RN) and Surgery (EBK, AA, WL, JK, JK), City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center, Duarte, CA 91010, USA.
authors.forename: Rebecca
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Nelson
authors.forename: Eun Bi
authors.initials: EB
authors.lastname: Ko
authors.forename: Amanda
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Arrington
authors.forename: Wendy
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Jae
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Julio
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Garcia-Aguilar
authors.forename: Joseph
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kim
mesh_terms: D000230:Adenocarcinoma / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000473:pathology* / Q000601:surgery; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D005743:Gastrectomy; D006801:Humans; D053208:Kaplan-Meier Estimate; D015141:Los Angeles / Q000453:epidemiology; D008197:Lymph Node Excision; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D056910:Republic of Korea / Q000208:ethnology; D018426:SEER Program; D013274:Stomach Neoplasms / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000473:pathology* / Q000601:surgery; D015996:Survival Rate; D055815:Young Adult