Prognostic significance of the recurrence pattern and risk factors for recurrence in patients with proximal gastric cancer who underwent curative gastrectomy

Proximal gastric cancer has a high propensity of early recurrence after curative resection due to high incidence of lymph node involvement. In the present study, we aimed to investigate the pattern and time of recurrence and to evaluate the risk factors for recurrence of patients with proximal gastric cancer. Between 2005 and 2013, 99 patients with recurrent proximal gastric cancer who underwent radical gastrectomy were retrospectively analyzed. The prognostic significance of the pattern and the time of recurrence and the relationship between the pattern of recurrence and the other clinicopathological factors were evaluated. The median time to recurrence was 24 months; 45.5 % of patients relapsed within 2 years. Forty-three (43.4 %) patients indicated hematogenous recurrence and 41 (41.4 %) patients revealed peritoneal recurrence with the most predominant patterns. The median progression-free survival (PFS) time for patients with locoregional recurrence was significantly better than that of patients with peritoneal recurrences, hematogenous recurrences, and distant lymph nodes (32.2 vs. 18.9 vs. 18.2 vs. 9.7 months, p = 0.005, respectively). Moreover, the median overall survival (OS) interval for patients with distant lymph nodes recurrence was significantly worse than that of patients with locoregional, peritoneal, and hematogenous recurrences (13.5 vs. 48.5 vs. 31.4 vs. 29.9 months, p = 0.006, respectively). The presence of lymph node metastasis (p = 0.004) and surgery type (p = 0.04) for PFS and the time of recurrence (p = 0.033), lymph node metastasis (p = 0.03), and surgery type (p = 0.04) for OS were found to be independent prognostic factors by multivariate analysis. Logistic regression analysis indicated that the presence of lymph node metastasis and surgery type were independent risk factors for predicting the occurrence of early recurrence (p = 0.001, OR 0.48 and p = 0.028, OR 0.41, respectively). The median OS time of early recurrence patients was significantly shorter than that of patients with late recurrence (16.6 vs. 55.2 months, p < 0.001). Furthermore, proximal gastrectomy, poorly differentiated histology, advanced pT stage, and lymph node metastasis were significantly associated with early recurrence. Our results showed that lymph node metastasis and surgery type were independent risk factors for prediction of early recurrence in proximal gastric cancer. Thus, total gastrectomy with regional lymph node dissection may be a suitable treatment option for proximal gastric cancer patients with tumors that have high risk features for recurrence.