title: Clinicopathologic features of gastric cancer in young patients.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Gastric cancer (GC) is considered to be a disease of elderly patients. It has been suggested that GC in young adults has more aggressive clinical and pathologic features than in adults. In this study we aimed to evaluate clinical and pathologic features of GC under age 40 years.
  
  
  METHODS
  Patients included in this study were those treated and followed up for GC under age 40 years in Ankara Numune Education and Research Hospital from 2002 to 2011.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Clinical and pathologic features of 82 patients have been evaluated retrospectively. Of the patients 44 were male (54%) and 38 were (46%) female, and the median age was 35 years (min-max: 18-40 years). The tumor was grade 3 in 77% of the patients, 79% had diffuse type tumor, 64% had lymphovascular invasion, and 76% had perineural invasion. Forty-seven patients (57%) were metastatic at the time of diagnosis. The median follow up was 9 (1-101) months. The median overall survival (OS) was 9 months in metastatic patients and 8-year OS was 64% in nonmetastatic patients.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We observed that young GC patients had more aggressive histopathologic features and more than half was metastatic at the time of diagnosis. We need more studies comparing young and elderly patients to confirm that young patients had more aggressive disease.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Oncology, Cumhuriyet University Medical Faculty, Sivas, Turkey.
authors.forename: Metin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Seker
authors.forename: Sercan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Aksoy
authors.forename: Nuriye Y
authors.initials: NY
authors.lastname: Ozdemir
authors.forename: Dogan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Uncu
authors.forename: Nurullah
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Zengin
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D017677:Age Distribution; D000367:Age Factors; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008297:Male; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D011379:Prognosis; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013270:Stomach / Q000473:pathology*; D013274:Stomach Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology; D014421:Turkey / Q000453:epidemiology; D055815:Young Adult