Feasible endoscopic therapy for early gastric cancer

AIM: To analyze the relationship between lymph node metastasis and clinical pathology of early gastric cancer (EGC) in order to provide criteria for a feasible endoscopic therapy. METHODS: Clinical data of the 525 EGC patients who underwent surgical operations between January 2009 and March 2014 in the West China Hospital of Sichuan University were analyzed retrospectively. Clinical pathological features were compared between different EGC patients with or without lymph node metastasis, and investigated by univariate and multivariate analyses for possible relationships with lymph node metastasis. RESULTS: Of the 2913 patients who underwent gastrectomy with lymph node dissection, 529 cases were pathologically proven to be EGC and 525 cases were enrolled in this study, excluding 4 cases of gastric stump carcinoma. Among 233 patients with mucosal carcinoma, 43 (18.5%) had lymph node metastasis. Among 292 patients with submucosal carcinoma, 118 (40.4%) had lymph nodemetastasis. Univariate analysis showed that gender, tumor size, invasion depth, differentiation type and lymphatic involvement correlated with a high risk of lymph node metastasis. Multivariate analysis revealed that gender (OR = 1.649, 95%CI: 1.091-2.492, P = 0.018), tumor size (OR = 1.803, 95%CI: 1.201-2.706, P = 0.004), invasion depth (OR = 2.566, 95%CI: 1.671-3.941, P = 0.000), histological differentiation (OR = 2.621, 95%CI: 1.624-4.230, P = 0.000) and lymphatic involvement (OR = 3.505, 95%CI: 1.590-7.725, P = 0.002) were independent risk factors for lymph node metastasis. Comprehensive analysis showed that lymph node metastasis was absent in patients with tumor that was limited to the mucosa, size <= 2 cm, differentiated and without lymphatic involvement. CONCLUSION: We propose an endoscopic therapy for EGC that is limited to the mucosa, size <= 2 cm, differentiated and without lymphatic involvement.