PURPOSE: A positive esophageal margin is encountered in a total gastrectomy not infrequently. The aim of this retrospective review was to evaluate whether a positive esophageal margin predisposes a patient to loco-regional recurrence and whether it has an independent impact on long-term survival. MATENRIALS AND METHODS: A retrospective review of 224 total gastrectomies for adenocarcinomas was undertaken. The Chi- square test was used to determine the statistical significance of differences, and the Kaplan-Meier method was used to calculate survival rates. Significant differences in the survival rates were assessed using the log-rank test, and independent prognostic significance was evaluated using the Cox regression method. RESULTS: The prevalence of esophageal margin involvement was 3.6% (8/224). Univariate analysis showed that advanced stage (stage III/IV), tumor size (> or =5 cm), tumor site (whole or upper one-third of the stomach), macroscopic type (Borrmann type 4), esophageal invasion, esophageal margin involvement, lymphatic invasion, and venous invasion affected survival. Multivariate analysis demonstrated that TNM stage, venous invasion, and esophageal margin involvement were the only significant factors influencing the prognosis. All patients with a positive esophageal margin died with metastasis before local recurrence became a problem. A macroscopic proximal distance of more than 6 cm of esophagus was needed to be free of tumors, excluding one exceptional case which involved 15 cm of esophagus. CONCLUSION: All of the patients with a positive proximal resection margin after a total gastrectomy had advanced disease with a poor prognosis, but they were not predisposed to anastomotic recurrence. Early detection and extended, but reasonable, surgical resection of curable lesions are mandatory to improve the prognosis.
Adenocarcinoma ; Esophagus ; Gastrectomy* ; Humans ; Multivariate Analysis ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Prevalence ; Prognosis ; Recurrence ; Retrospective Studies ; Stomach Neoplasms* ; Survival Rate

PURPOSE: Although gastric carcinomas occur throughout the world and the incidence is on the decrease, they remain the most common type of carcinoma in Korea. Significant advancements in the diagnostics and the surgical treatment of gastric carcinomas have been achieved during the last three decades. The present retrospective study was undertaken to investigate the chronological changes in the clinical features, including clinicopathological findings, operative treatment, and prognosis of gastric carcinomas. MATENRIALS AND METHODS: A total of 1973 patients with a primary gastric adenocarcinoma who had been treated surgically during the period from 1983 to 1998 at the Department of Surgery, Korea University College of Medicine, were divided into two groups to evaluate chronological changes: 1007 patients had been treated during the period from 1983 to 1992 (early period) and 966 patients during the period from 1993 to 1998 (late period). Chronological changes in age, sex, ratio of early gastric cancer (EGC), and resectability were analyzed in all 1973 cases. For the 1755 resected cases, we also studied the chronological changes in the clinicopathological and treatment factors between the early-period (n=894) and the late-period (n=867) groups. RESULTS: There were significant differences between the two periods with regard to age and ratio of EGC: EGC was more frequent in the late period. Univariate analysis of resected cases showed that gross type, tumor size, depth of invasion, UICC stage, and histological type were statistically significant. The analysis of the treatment factors revealed that total gastrectomies and extended lymphadenectomies were more frequent during the late period. The number of lymph nodes dissected was 26.0+/-12.7 in the early period and 33.4+/-14.1 in the late period (p<0.01). The 5-year survival rate in all cases was 51.4% in the early period and 55.9% in the late period. The stage-related survival rates (UICC 4th Ed., 1987) in the early vs. the late periods were 92.9% vs. 95.5% in stage IA, 82.1% vs. 91.1% in stage IB, 76.5% vs. 73.1% in stage II, 46.5% vs. 52.1% in stage IIIA, 14.5% vs. 33.6% in stage IIIB, and 2.8% vs. 8.8% in stage IV. There was a statistically significant difference in survival between stage IIIB and IV. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that the differences in the clinicopathological findings are related primarily to the increased number of early gastric cancer cases in the late period and that the improved survival noted during the late period for in stage IIIB and IV cancers might be related to extended surgery.
Adenocarcinoma ; Gastrectomy ; Humans ; Incidence ; Korea ; Lymph Node Excision ; Lymph Nodes ; Prognosis ; Retrospective Studies ; Stomach Neoplasms* ; Survival Rate

PURPOSE: Submucosal gastric carcinomas metastasize to lymph nodes more often than the intramucosal gastric carcinomas. The objectives of this study are to clarify the characteristics of submucosal gastric carcinomas, especially in reference to the status of lymph node metastasis, and to explore the possibility of a minimally invasive operation. MATENRIALS AND METHODS: The clinicopathologic features of 88 patients with submucosal gastric carcinoma, all of whom were treated with a D2+alpha gastrectomy between January 1994 and December 1999, were examined retrospectively with respect to the status of lymph nodes. The size, depth of submucosal invasion, histologic differentiation, location, and macroscopic finding of the tumor were investigated in association with the presence or the absence of lymph node metastasis. RESULTS: Among the 88 patients, 15 (17.05%) had lymph node metastasis, and the status of metastasis was significantly correlated with tumor size and depth of submucosal invasion. The frequency of metastasis was 0% (0/7) of up to 1.0 cm and 18.5% (15/81) over 1.0 cm in size (p=0.034) and 6.1% (2/33) of up to 1.0mm and 23.6% (13/55) over 1.0 mm in depth of submucosal invasion (p=0.042). CONCLUSION: The tumor size and depth of submucosal invasion are useful indicators of lymph node metastasis in submucosal gastric carcinoma. A minimally invasive op-eration can be applied for submucosal gastric carcinoma up to 1.0 cm in size Further studies are needed to limited surgery for depth of submucosal invasion.
Gastrectomy ; Humans ; Lymph Nodes* ; Neoplasm Metastasis* ; Retrospective Studies

PURPOSE: Multiple early gastric cancers were found in 6.9~11.7% of patients with early gastric cancer. The goal of this study was to clarify the clinicopathologic features of and to investigate treatment strategy for multiple early gastric cancer. MATENRIALS AND METHODS: Of 967 patients with an gastric adenocarcinoma who were treated by surgical resection during the period of 1993~1998 at the Department of Surgery, Korea University College of Medicine, 267 patients had early gastric cancer. A retrospective analysis of the clinicopathologic differences between the main and the accessory lesions in multiple early gastric cancer was carried out. A comparative analysis was also conducted between solitary early gastric cancer and multiple early gastric cancer. RESULTS: Of 267 patients with early gastric cancer, multiple early gastric cancers were found in 12 patients (4.5%), including 10 men and 2 women. Eleven patients with multiple early gastric cancer had one accessory lesion and 1 patient had 2 accessory lesions. Of the 13 accessory lesions, 7 (53.8%) were located in the same region as the main lesion. The most frequent combination of macroscopic types for the main lesion and the accessory lesion were depressed and depressed types (6 cases, 46.1%). The most frequent histologic type of main lesion was a well differentiated adenocarcinoma in 7 (58.3%) of the 12 cases; the accessory lesion was also well differentiated in 4 of those 7 cases. Of the 13 accessory lesions, 4 (30.8%) had been overlooked preoperatively; most of them were located in the lower third of the stomach and were IIb or IIc type and measured less than 1 cm in diameter. Lymph node metastasis was detected in 1 patient (8.3%). The clinicopathologic features of multiple early gastric cancer were not different from those of solitary early gastric cancer. CONCLUSION: In multiple early gastric cancer, the main and the accessory lesions showed similar differentiation, and lymph node metastasis was less frequent than in solitary early gastric cancer. Therefore, limited procedures, including endoscopic mucosal resection, may be indicated if each lesion of the multiple early gastric cancer fits the criteria for treatment strategy.
Adenocarcinoma ; Female ; Humans ; Korea ; Lymph Nodes ; Male ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Retrospective Studies ; Stomach ; Stomach Neoplasms*

PURPOSE: Gastric stump cancer is defined as a cancer that develops in the stomach after a resection in cases of non-malignant or malignant gastric disease. The interval between the gastrectomy and the detection of gastric stump cancer must be over 5 years. Since duodenogastric reflux gastritis is a precancerous condition and one of the most important factors inducing gastric stump cancer, we compared the bile-acid content of gastric juice between gastric stump cancer patients and controls. MATENRIALS AND METHODS: To evaluate retrospectively the surgical treatment of patients with gastric stump cancer, we reviewed the cases histories of 1016 stomach cancer patients who had been operated on at the Department of General Surgery, Kosin University Gospel Hospital, between 1995 and 1998. The gastric juice was collected during the operations on the gastric stump cancer patients by using a needle puncture of the fundus of the stomach and during the endoscopic examinations of the control subjects. The samples were analyzed for various bile acids (gas chromatography/mass spectrometry). RESULTS: The 6 gastric stump cancer cases accounted for 0.6% of all gastric cancer patients; 5 patients were first operated on for a peptic ulcer and the remaining one for an adenocarcinoma of the stomach. All of the cases were men. The reconstruction method after the initial gastrectomy was a Billroth II in all cases. The sites of the gastric stump cancer were the anastomotic sitein 2 patients, the upper body in 2, the fundus in 1 and the cardia in 1. The operative methods were 3 total gastrectomies, 2 subtotal gastrectomies with Roux en Y anastomosis, and 1 partial gastrectomy with lymph node dissection and had a curative intention in all patients. All of the patients were still surviving at the time of this report. The gastric juices of 4 gastric stump patients showed significantly higher contents of cholic acid (36.42microgram/ ml) compared to the gastric juices of 35 control subjects (12.82microgram/ml)(p< or =0.0001). Chenodeoxycholic acid and lithocholic acid were not significantly different. CONCLUSION: The gastric juice of gastric stump cancer patients contained a significantly higher cholic acid content. At the time of the initial gastrectomy, an operative method that prevents duodenogastric reflux may prevent or minimize the development of gastric stump cancer, and more aggressive surgical treatment may improve survival.
Adenocarcinoma ; Anastomosis, Roux-en-Y ; Bile Acids and Salts ; Cardia ; Chenodeoxycholic Acid ; Cholic Acid ; Duodenogastric Reflux ; Gastrectomy ; Gastric Juice ; Gastric Stump* ; Gastritis ; Gastroenterostomy ; Humans ; Intention ; Lithocholic Acid ; Lymph Node Excision ; Male ; Needles ; Peptic Ulcer ; Precancerous Conditions ; Punctures ; Retrospective Studies ; Stomach ; Stomach Diseases ; Stomach Neoplasms

PURPOSE: The prognosis for gastric cancer with peritoneal seeding is very poor, and the role of surgical intervention is limited. We evaluated the effect of radical removal of primary and metastatic lesions on survival in gastric cancer with peritoneal seeding. MATENRIALS AND METHODS: From May 1989 to March 1999 at Kosin University Gospel Hospital, 115 patients revealed gastric cancer with peritoneal seeding but without liver or lung metastasis and without follow-up loss. The study group included 86 patients who underwent surgery for radical removal of primary gastric and metastatic peritoneal lesions. The control group included 29 patients who experienced incomplete removal of primary or metastatic lesions. Both groups received intraoperative intraperitoneal chemotherapy using mytomycin or cisplatin, and 25 patients underwent postoperative intravenous chemotherapy. RESULTS: The median survival times in the study and the control groups were 13 months and 4 months, respectively (p<0.0001). The 1-year, 2-year, and 5-year survival rates were, respectively, 50.6%, 18.1%, and 11.3% in the study group and 14.8%, 3.7%, and 0% in the control group (p<0.0001). In the study group, neither postoperative intravenous chemotherapy nor microscopic invasion of the resection margin had any effect on survival, but intraoperative intraperitoneal chemotherapy and degree of peri-toneal seeding, especially the amount of peritoneal seeding, had an effect on survival. In the control group, neither intraperitoneal nor intravenous chemotherapy had any effect on survival, but resection of the primary gastric lesion improved survival. CONCLUSION: Radical removal of primary gastric and metastatic peritoneal lesions improved the survival rate for gastric cancer with peritoneal seeding. However, a randomized prospective study is needed to correctly evaluate the effect of intraperitoneal or intravenous chemotherapy.
Cisplatin ; Drug Therapy ; Follow-Up Studies ; Humans ; Liver ; Lung ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Prognosis ; Stomach Neoplasms* ; Survival Rate

PURPOSE: Dysplasia or flat adenoma of the stomach is regarded as a precancerous lesion. However, the frequency and the evolutionary process of malignant transformation of gastric dysplasia are still debated. In order to see whether the lesion was a monoclonal or a polyclonal proliferation, clonality was assayed by X-linked HUMARA polymorphism. MATENRIALS AND METHODS: DNA was extracted from the paraffin-embedded tissue of 16 consecutive cases of endoscopic biopsy, eight of which supplied both dysplastic and nondysplastic tissue for comparison. HUMARA was amplified by PCR with or without pretreatment with methylation- sensitive restriction enzyme, HpaII. The amplification products were electrophoresed on polyacrylamide gel and silver-stained. RESULTS: Among the 16 cases, 13 cases were informative and 3 cases noninformative. Of the 13 cases, one case showed skewed lyonization, rendering 12 cases to be analyzed further. A monoclonal band pattern was noted in 2 cases, and a polyclonal band pattern in 10 cases. A review of the histopathologies of the monoclonal and the polyclonal cases did not reveal features discriminating the two groups. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that gastric dysplasia is a disease entity heterogeneous in the genetic level, and many cases may be non-neoplastic.
Adenoma ; Biopsy ; DNA ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Stomach* ; X Chromosome Inactivation

PURPOSE: Radical surgery is the standard therapy for patients with resectable cardia cancer. In the case of type II disease with esophageal invasion, a transhiatal extended radical total gastrectomy is needed or a gastroesophagectomy through an abdomino-thoracotomy, depending on the extent of the esophageal invasion. We analyzed the indications and outcome of left colon interposition as an esophageal substitution. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Between 1 January 1994 and 31 December 2006, 10 patients underwent left colon interposition after gastroesophagectomy through an abdomino-thoracotomy or the tanshiatal approach for type II cardia cancer at the Department of surgery, Yonsei University College of Medicine. The outcomes of these patients were reviewed and compared, with those who underwent a Roux-en-Y, by gender and age matched analysis, retrospectively. RESULTS: There were nine males and one female with a mean age of 52.5 (range, 16~72). The operation time was 449.00+/-87.39 minutes. The mean distance between the proximal resection margin and the cancer was 6.56+/-3.65 cm; the maximum size of the tumor was 9.90+/-3.97 cm. These measures differed significantly from patients who underwent Roux-en-Y. The patients had a double primary cancer in the cardia and esophagus. There were no events of colon necrosis. However, a pneumothorax occurred in one patient (10%) and a proximal anastomotic stricture occurred in one patient. There were no reports of heartburn, regurgitation, thoracic or epigastric fullness, and one patient even gained weight, 16 kg. CONCLUSION: Colon interposition after esophagogastrectomy was safe and effective and should be considered as an additional surgical option for locally advanced type II cardia cancer patients with esophageal invasion.
Cardia ; Colon ; Constriction, Pathologic ; Esophagus ; Female ; Gastrectomy ; Heartburn ; Humans ; Male ; Necrosis ; Pneumothorax

PURPOSE: The early detection of gastric cancer and accuracy of preoperative staging has currently been on the increase due to the development of endoscopy and imaging techniques, but there are still many cases of advanced gastric cancer detected at the first diagnosis and there are also many cases of stage IV gastric cancer diagnosed after a postoperative pathological examination. Although the prognosis of stage IV gastric cancer is very poor, this study was performed to determine the value of the use of aggressive treatment determined after a clinical analysis. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed 150 patients that were diagnosed with stage IV gastric cancer among 1376 patients who underwent a laparotomy for gastric cancer from January 1994 to December 2006. RESULTS: Of the 150 patients with stage IV gastric cancer who underwent a laparotomy, there were 104 men and 46 women. The mean patient age was 57.8 years (age range, 28~93 years). A subtotal gastrectomy or total gastrectomy was performed in 119 patients and 31 patients underwent an explorative laparotomy. The mean survival time of patients that underwent a gastrectomy and patients that did not undergo a gastrectomy was 722 days (range, 14~4,559 days) and 173 days (range, 16~374 days), respectively this result was statistically significant. When patients that underwent a gastrectomy were classified according to the TNM stage, the mean survival time of 33 patients with stage T4 disease was 534 days (range, 17~3,378 days) and the mean survival time of 63 patients with stage N3 disease was 521 days (range, 14~4,190 days), but there was no statistical significance. Chemotherapy was administered to 98 patients and 52 patients did not receive chemotherapy. The mean survival time of patients that received chemotherapy was 792 days (range, 36~4,559 days) and the mean survival time of patients that did not receive chemotherapy was 243 days (range, 14~2,413 days), with statistical significance. CONCLUSION: If there is no evidence of distant metastasis in stage IV gastric cancer, one can expect improvement of the survival rate by the use of aggressive treatment, including curative gastric resection with radical lymph node dissection and chemotherapy.
Endoscopy ; Female ; Gastrectomy ; Humans ; Laparotomy ; Lymph Node Excision ; Male ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Prognosis ; Retrospective Studies ; Stomach Neoplasms ; Survival Rate

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to evaluate the safety and feasibility of D2 lymphadenectomy in elderly patients with gastric cancerby comparing the surgical outcomes and postoperative courses between an elderly group and a control group undergoing the same procedure. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Clinical information was reviewed for 1251 patients with gastric cancer who underwent gastrectomy between May 2004 and May 2007. Patients were classified into the following two groups: an elderly group (older than the average life span in Korea) and a control group (younger than the elderly group). Clinicopathologic features and postoperative courses after D2 lymphadenectomy were reviewed and compared between the two groups. RESULTS: There were a total of 120 (9%) elderly group patients among all those reviewed, and 86 (72.2%) of them underwent D2 lymphadenectomy. There was 27.5% postoperative morbidity in the elderly group, which was significantly different from thecontrol group (12.8%, p=0.003). However, on multivariate analysis, ASA score and combined resection were independent predictive factors of postoperative complications, while age was not predictive. CONCLUSION: Older age is not a predictive factor of postoperative complications in itself, and D2 lymphadenectomy can be safely performed in elderly patients with gastric cancer, provided they have good ASA scores and do not undergo accompanying combined resection.
Aged ; Gastrectomy ; Humans ; Lymph Node Excision ; Multivariate Analysis ; Postoperative Complications ; Stomach Neoplasms