Clinicopathologic Characteristics and Prognostic Factors of Long-term Survivors of Borrmann Type 4 Gastric Cancer

Ryu, Je Ho; Yook, Jeong Hwan; Kim, Byung Sick; Oh, Sung Tae; Jung, Soon Tae; Choi, Won Yong

Abstract

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Prognosis of Borrmann type 4 gastric cancer is still poor. To improve the prognosis of patients with Borrmann type 4 gastric cancer, it is important to understand the clinicopathological features of patients with a long-term survival. Thus, we compared the characteristics of the patients with a long-term survival (survival duration more than 5 years) with patients with a short-term survival. METHODS: We analyzed retrospectively 370 patients who were diagnosed as having Borrmann type 4 gastric cancer and underwent gastric resection between 1989 to 1997 at our hospital. Twenty-one percent of the patients survived longer than 5 years. For comparison of clinicopathlogical factors, the chi-square test was used and multivariate analysis was performed in order to focus on prognostic factors. RESULTS: The 5-year survival rate of the total 370 patients was 21%. Significant difference was noted in the following variables : location of tumor, size, peritoneal metastsis, hepatic metastasis, lymph node metastasis, depth of invasion, stage and curability. In multivariate analysis, the location of tumor was the most significant independent prognostic factor. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that even in Borrmann type 4 gastric cancer, a localired disease can be cured by a radical resection.