Correlation between preoperative tomographic staging and definitive histopathologic results in gastric cancer at the Hospital Central Militar

Abstract

BackgroundIn relation to the number of new cases diagnosed, gastric cancer is the fourth most common cancer worldwide, and the second cause of cancer death. The development of multidetector tomography has improved the preoperative staging of gastric cancer. AimTo correlate preoperative tomographic studies with the definitive pathologic results according to the TNM staging system. MethodsA retrospective, cross-sectional study within the time frame of January 2009 to December 2013 was conducted that included the case records of 67 patients. They all had upper endoscopy and preoperative multidetector tomography examinations, underwent surgical resection, and had the corresponding histopathology study. Statistical analysis was carried out with the SPSS version 15.0 software and the sensitivity and specificity calculations were made using the Excel 2011 program for Mac. ResultsThe majority of the patients included in the case series had clinical stage iii and iv disease. When compared with the histopathologic result, the overall accuracy of multidetector CT was 83% (T0 96%, T1 94%, T2 93%, T3 67%, and T4 67%) for tumor size (T) and was 70% (N0 72%, N1 73%, N2 70%, and N3 66%) for lymph node involvement (N). Overall sensitivity was 48% (T0 100%, T1 0%, T2 33%, T3 44%, and T4 65%) for T and was 41% (N0 58%, N1 56%, N2 15%, and N3 35%) for N. A strong association between the multidetector CT results and the pathology results was demonstrated through the Spearman's correlation, especially in T4 and N3. ConclusionsMultidetector computed tomography showed greater congruency in detecting stages T4, N0, and N3 in gastric cancer, when compared with the definitive histopathologic results.