Objective: To analyze the efficacy of curative endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) for patients with early cardia and non-cardia gastric cancer. Methods: Clinical data of patients with early gastric cancer who underwent curative ESD treatment in the Department of Gastroenterology, Zhongda Hospital, Southeast University from August 2016 to July 2023 were retrospectively collected. According to the location of lesions and postoperative pathology, the patients were divided into cardia group (early cardia gastric cancer and high-grade intraepithelial neoplasia) and non-cardia group. Follow-up ended in October 2023. Basic clinical information, endoscopy features and histopathological results, postoperative complications and prognosis were compared between the two groups. Kaplan-Meier method was used to present the survival curve and compare the metachronous recurrence-free survival rate and overall survival rate between the two groups. Results: A total of 279 patients were included, including 96 patients in the cardia group (83 males and 13 females), aged [M (Q1, Q3)] 68 (65, 74) years, and 183 patients in the non-cardia group (136 males and 47 females), aged 67 (59, 72) years. The follow-up duration after ESD was 35 (22, 53) months. Differences in postoperative pathological types and lesion invasion depth between the two groups were statistically significant (all P<0.05). The cardia group had the highest proportion of well/moderately differentiated adenocarcinoma [69.8% (67/96)] and T1-M3 invasion depth [58.3% (56/96)], while the non-cardia group had the highest proportion of well/moderately differentiated adenocarcinoma [52.5% (96/183)] and T1-M1 invasion depth [43.2% (79/183)]. The proportion of merging esophageal mucosal lesions [13.5% (13/96) vs 5.5% (10/183)] and deep cystic gastritis [19.8% (19/96) vs 2.7% (5/183)] in the cardia group were higher than those in the non-cardia group (all P<0.05). There were no statistically significant differences in postoperative complication rates [4.2% (4/96) vs 2.2% (4/183)] and mortality rates [1.0% (1/96) vs 2.2% (4/183)] between two groups (all P>0.05). The rate of metachronous recurrence in the cardia group [11.5% (11/96) vs 4.9% (9/183)] was higher than that in the non-cardia group (P=0.044). The 1-year, 3-year, 5-year metachronous recurrence-free survival rates were 97.9%, 89.6%, 79.8% in the cardia group and 100.0%, 96.3%, 92.1% in the non-cardia group, with statistically significant difference (P=0.015); the 1-year, 3-year, 5-year overall survival rates were 100.0%, 100.0%, 97.1% in the cardia group and 99.5%, 98.3%, 98.3% in the non-cardia group, with no statistically significant difference (P=0.597). Conclusion: Compared to the non-cardia group, patients with early cardia gastric cancer treated with curative ESD have a poorer prognosis, with a higher incidence of metachronous recurrence.
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