Clinicopathological features and prognosis in elderly gastric cancer patients: a retrospective cohort study

BACKGROUND: Little is known about the clinicopathological features and prognosis in elderly gastric cancer (GC) patients aged 65–79 years. The aim of this study was to evaluate clinicopathological features and prognosis in elderly GC patients. PATIENTS AND METHODS: From May 2008 to December 2014, a total of 5,282 GC patients were enrolled in our present study. Patients were divided into elderly and middle-aged groups. The clinicopathological features and clinical outcomes were analyzed. RESULTS: The proportion of dysphagia was significantly higher in elderly patients than that in middle-aged patients (P=0.002), whereas the proportion of abdominal pain and heartburn was significantly lower in elderly patients than that in middle-aged patients (P<0.001 vs P=0.038, respectively). The proportion of patients with carbohydrate antigen (CA) 19-9 was significantly higher in elderly patients than that in middle-aged patients (P=0.009). There was no significant difference in clinicopathological features between elderly and middle-aged patients with D2 gastrectomy (all P>0.05). Age, tumor size, histological type, tumor depth, lymph node metastasis, carcinoembryonic antigen, alpha fetoprotein, CA19-9, and CA125 were independent risk factors for the prognosis of GC patients in univariate and multivariate analyses. Overall survival in elderly patients was significantly reduced compared with middle-aged patients (P=0.001), especially in patients with tumor size >5 cm (P=0.002), poorly differentiated tumor (P<0.000), stage III tumor (P=0.002), or normal levels of carcinoembryonic antigen (P=0.009), alpha fetoprotein (P=0.002), CA19-9 (P=0.002), and CA125 (P=0.004). CONCLUSION: The clinicopathological features of elderly patients were different to those of middle-aged patients. The prognosis for elderly GC patients was significantly worse than for middle-aged patients.