Is surgery alone sufficient for treating T1 gastric cancer with extensive lymph node metastases?

Abstract

Whether or not surgery alone is sufficient for treating patients with pathological stage T1N2M0 (Stage IIA), T1N3a/bM0 (Stage IIB/IIIB), and T3N0M0 (Stage IIA) gastric cancer who were not indicated for adjuvant treatment according to the Japanese gastric cancer treatment guideline remains unclear. We retrospectively reviewed the clinical records of 236 patients who had been diagnosed with pT1N2-3b/pT3N0 gastric cancer and undergone R0 gastrectomy with lymph node dissection between January 2000 and December 2012 at the National Cancer Center Hospital, Japan. The 5-year recurrence-free survival (RFS) rates (95% confidence interval [CI]) of the patients with pathological (p) T1N2-3b and T3N0 cancer were 73.9% (63.1-84.7) and 89.5% (84.0-95.0), respectively. The only significant prognostic factors for the survival identified by a multivariate Cox regression analysis in patients with pT1N2-3 cancer were the pN stage (N3a/N2: hazard ratio [HR] 2.940, 95% CI 1.314-5.577; N3b/N2: HR 8.688, 95% CI 3.096-24.382) and tumor diameter (<30/ ≥ 30mm) (HR 2.919; 95% CI 1.351-6.304). We divided the patients with pT1N2-3 gastric cancer into 3 risk categories (high, moderate, low) using these 2 significant prognostic factors and found that the 5-year RFS rates were significantly different among the 3 risk groups (low risk, 93.0%; moderate risk, 66.7%; high risk, 25.0%; P < 0.001). pT3N0 and large pT1N2 with a diameter ≥ 30mm had an excellent prognosis, while pT1N2-3 with at least N3a/b or a tumor diameter < 30mm showed a relatively poor prognosis. These patients may be candidates for adjuvant chemotherapy.