Clinicopathological characteristics, prognosis and survival outcome of gastric cancer in young patients: A large cohort retrospective study

Purpose: To investigate the survival outcome of patients with gastric cancer <= 40 years of age and to compare them to older patients with gastric cancer. Methods: The study included gastric cancer patients treated between l990 and 2014. Patient demographics, tumor histopathological characteristics and outcome were registered. Patients were classified according to the International Classification of Diseases for Oncology. Two subgroups of patients were created based on age: group 1 (40 years and less at the time of diagnosis, and group 2 (patients older than 40 years). Categorical and continuous variables were analyzed with x(2) and Mann-Whitney U tests, respectively. Overall survival (OS) rates were estimated by the Kaplan-Meier method. Results: Diffuse adenocarcinoma was more common in the young group (48.9%) than in the older group (28.9%) (p<0.0001). No statistically significant survival difference was noted between younger (11 months) and older patients (12 months) (p=0.79). Early stage (p<0.0001), absence of perineural invasion (PNI) (p<0.0001), absence of lymphovascular invasion (LVI) (p <0.0001), and non-cardia tumors (p <0.0001) were associated with better OS rates in univariate analysis. Non-cardia tumors (p=0.016) and stage (p= <0.0001) were independent prognostic factors of survival outcome in multivariate analysis. Conclusions: This study demonstrated that young and older patients with gastric cancer have similar outcomes in terms of OS.