A Proposal of a Personalized Surveillance Strategy for Gastric Cancer: A Retrospective Analysis of 9191 Patients

BACKGROUND: In gastric cancer, various surveillance strategies are suggested in international guidelines. The current study is intended to evaluate the current strategies and provide more personalized proposals for personalized cancer medicine. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In the aggregate, 9191 patients with gastric cancer after gastrectomy from 1998 to 2009 were selected from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database. Disease-specific survival was analyzed by Kaplan-Meier method and the log-rank test. Cox proportional hazards regression analyses were used to confirm the independent prognostic factors. As well, hazard ratio (HR) curves were used to compare the risk of death over time. Conditional survival (CS) was applied to dynamically assess the prognosis after each follow-up. RESULTS: Comparisons from HR curves on different stages showed that earlier stages had distinctly lower HR than advanced stages. The curve of stage IIA was flat and more likely the same as that of stage I while that of stage IIB is like that of stage III with an obvious peak. After estimating CS at intervals of three months, six months, and 12 months in different periods, stages I and IIA had high levels of CS all along, while there were visible differences among CS levels of stages IIB and III. CONCLUSIONS: The frequency of follow-up for early stages, like stages I and IIA, could be every six months or longer in the first three years and annually thereafter. And those with unfavorable conditions, such as stages IIB and III, could be followed up much more frequently and sufficiently than usual.