Worse Survival of Patients With T1 Stage II Gastric Cancer Following Radical Gastrectomy

PURPOSE: Lymph node (LN) metastasis is a crucial factor in the prognosis of patients with gastric cancer (GC) and is known to occur more frequently in cases with an advanced T stage. This study aimed to analyze the survival data of patients with advanced LN metastasis in T1 GC. MATERIALS AND METHODS: From January 2008 to June 2018, 677 patients with pathological stage II GC who underwent radical gastrectomy were divided into an early GC group (EG: T1N2 and T1N3a, n=103) and an advanced GC (AGC) group (AG: T2N1, T2N2, T3N0, T3N1, and T4aN0, n=574). Short- and long-term survival rates were compared between the 2 groups. RESULTS: A total of 80.6% (n=83) of the patients in the EG group and 52.8% (n=303) in the AG group had stage IIA AGC. The extent of LN dissection, number of retrieved LNs, and short-term morbidity and mortality rates did not differ between the 2 groups. The 5-year relapse-free survival (RFS) of all patients was 87.8% and the overall survival was 84.0%. RFS was lower in the EG group than in the AG group (82.2% vs. 88.7%, P=0.047). This difference was more pronounced among patients with stage IIA (82.4% vs. 92.9%, P=0.003). CONCLUSIONS: T1 GC with multiple LN metastases seems to have a worse prognosis compared to tumors with higher T-stages at the same level. Adjuvant chemotherapy is highly recommended for these patients, and future staging systems may require upstaging T1N2-stage tumors.