Reevaluation of the expanded indications in undifferentiated early gastric cancer for endoscopic submucosal dissection

BACKGROUND Although the criteria for the indication of endoscopic submucosal dissection(ESD) for undifferentiated early gastric cancer(UD-EGC) have been recently proposed, accumulating reports on the non-negligible rate of lymph node metastasis(LNM) after indicated ESD raise questions on the reliability of the current criteria.AIM To investigate the prevalence and risk factors of LNM in UD-EGC cases meeting the expanded indication for ESD.METHODS We retrospectively reviewed 4780 UD-EGC cases that underwent surgical resection between January 2008 and February 2019 at Asan Medical Center, a tertiary university hospital in Korea. To identify the risk factors of LNM of UDEGC meeting the expanded criteria for ESD, we performed a case-control study by matching the cases with LNM to those without at a ratio of 1:4. We reviewed the clinical, endoscopic, and histologic features of the cases to identify features with a significant difference according to the presence of LNM. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed to estimate the odds ratios(ORs).RESULTS Of the 4780 UD-EGC cases, 1240(25.9%) were identified to meet the expanded indication for ESD. Of the 1240 cases, 14(1.1%) cases had LNM. Among the various clinical, endoscopic, and histopathological features that were evaluated, mixed histology(tumors consisting of 10%-90% of signet ring cells) had a marginally significant association(P = 0.059) with the risk of LNM. Moreover, diffuse blurring of the muscularis mucosae(MM) underneath the tumorous epithelium, a previously unrecognized histologic feature, had a significant association with the absence of LNM(P = 0.028). Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that the blurring of MM was the only explanatory variable significantly associated with a reduced risk of LNM(OR: 0.12, 95%CI: 0.02-0.95; P = 0.045).CONCLUSION The risk of LNM is higher than expected when using the current expanded indication for UDEGC. Histological evaluation could provide useful clues for reducing the risk of LNM.