A Clinical Analysis of Recurrence and Lymphatic Metastasis in Early Gastric Cancer

Kim, Kyoung Hwan; Cho, Byung Sun; Kang, Yoon Jung; Park, Joo Seung

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Among all gastric cancers, the most frequent malignant tumor in Korea, the proportion of early gastric cancer is increasing. This increase is bringing about controversy on the necessity of gastrectomy with extensive lymph node dissection for treatment.
METHODS
Of 923 gastric cancer cases operated on at EulJi Medical Hospital from Jan. 1988 to Dec. 1996, we observed retrospectively 198 cases diagnosed as early gastric cancer on pathological biopsies. We performed this study in order to analyze the prognostic factors affecting recurrence and survival rate and to determine which characteristic of early gastric cancer influences lymph node metastasis.
RESULTS
The rate of lymph node metastasis of early gastric cancer was 9.5% and it was revealed that depth of tumor invasion (p<0.0001) and tumor size (p=0.05) affected lymph node metastasis. This comprehensive study on the correlation between lymph node metastasis and such factors as gross type of tumor, depth of tumor invasion, tumor size, and histologic type of tumor indicated that the larger in size, a submucosal cancer in depth, the more depressed in gross type, the poorer in differentiation, the higher the rates of lymph node metastasis were. The 5-year recurrence rate was 4.9%, and the 10-year recurrence rate was 9.6%. Lymph node metastasis had the greatest effect on recurrence, compared with other factors influencing recurrence: depth of tumor invasion (p=0.0358), tumor size (p=0.0054) and lymph node metastasis (p=0.0003). The 5-year survival rate was 95.6% and 10-year survival rate was 91.9%. These survival rates didn't correlate with the depth of tumor invasion (p=0.099), the histologic type (p=0.963) or the gross type (p=0.1324) while the survival rates revealed significant differences (p=0.0337, 0.0032) based on tumor size (<1 100%, 1-2 100%, >2 89.6%) and lymph node metastasis (n 96.3%, n 88.9%).
CONCLUSIONS
Lymph mode metastasis is the most influential factor in the survival rate and the recurrence rate of early gastric cancer. We conclude that limited surgery is a reasonable treatment for differentiated mucosal cancers less than 5 cm and selectively for submucosal cancers less than 2 cm with elevation, which have the least possibility of recurrence and lymph node metastasis. However, a gas-trectomy with extensive regional lymph node dissection is still considered to be essential for either submucosal cancer with a depression or the submucosal cancer measuring more than 2 cm in size with elevation since recurrence and lymph node metastasis were frequently seen with these variants.