Thirty-year trends in clinicopathologic characteristics and prognosis after gastrectomy for gastric cancer: A single institution in Northern China

Background: We integrated changes in the trends in clinicopathologic characteristics and postoperative prognosis in patients with gastric cancer Northern China over a 30-year period. Methods: A retrospective analysis of patients undergoing gastric cancer resection and complete follow-up information from January 1981 to December 2010 in the first affiliated Hospital of China Medical University was carried out. We divided the patients into three consecutive periods. Results: A total of 3,520 patients were included in this study. The proportion of lower tumors increased (from 58.8 to 66.9%), while that of upper tumors decreased (from 21.3 to 13.4%). The proportion of tumors > 5cm decreased (from 58.6 to 41.1 %), but the increasing trend of poorly differentiated gastric cancer was obvious (from 60.1 to 75.7%). The percentage of early gastric cancer increased from 10.0 to 15.5 during the study periods, and that of TNM stage Ⅳ cancer decreased from 38.6 to 28.1. In surgery treatment, the rate of radical resection increased to 92.1% in recent period, and the average number of retrieved lymph nodes increased. The 5-year survival rate gradually increased from 36.5% to 48.5% (p<0.001). The Multivariate analysis showed that age, tumor size, T stage, N stage, number of retrieved lymph nodes and resection type were independent prognostic factors for gastric cancer. Conclusion: The patterns of clinicopathologic features for gastric cancer changed during the 30-year period in North China. Overall survival (OS) could be increased by early detection of tumors and standard surgical treatment.