Lymph node metastasis in early gastric cancer with submucosal invasion:Feasibility of minimally invasive surgery

AIM:To explore the feasibility of pertorming minimally invasive surgery(MIS)on subsets of submucosal gastric cancers that are unlikely to have regional lymph node metastasis. METHODS:A total of 105 patients underwent radical gastrectomy with lymph node dissection for submucosal gastric cancer at our hospital from January 1995 to December 1995.Besides investigating many clinicopathological features such as tumor size,gross appearance,and differentiation, we measured the depth of invasion into submucosa minutely and analyzed the clinicopathologic features of these patients regarding lymph node metastasis. RESULTS:The rate of lymph node metastasis in cases where the depth of invasion was<500 μm,500-2 000 μm,or >2 000 μm was 9%(2/23),19%(7136),and 33%(15/46), respectively(P<0.05).In univariate analysis,no significant correlation was found between lymph node metastasis and clinicopathological characteristics such as age,sex,tumor location,gross appearance,tumor differentiation,Lauren's classification,and lymphatic invasion.In multivariate analysis, tumor size(>4 cm vs≤2 cm,odds ratio=4.80, P=0.04)and depth of invasion(>2 000 μm vs ≤500 μm, odds ratio=6.81,P=0.02)were significantly correlated with lymph node metastasis.Combining the depth and size in cases where the depth of invasion was less than 500 μm, we found that lymph node metastasis occurred where the tumor size was greater than 4 cm.In cases where the tumor size was less than 2 cm,lymph node metastasis was found only where the depth of tumor invasion was more than 2 000 μm. CONCLUSION:MIS can be applied to submucosal gastric cancer that is less than 2 cm in size and 500 μm in depth.

Clinicopathologic features of surgically resected primary gastric lymphoma

AIM:To analyze the clinicopathologic characteristics of surgically resected gastric lymphoma patients. METHODS:We retrospectively analyzed 57 surgically resected gastric lymphoma patients,dividing them into 2 subgroups:Low grade MALToma (the LG group),High grade MALToma and Diffuse large B cell lymphoma (the HG group). RESULTS:The numbers of patients were:20 in the LG group, 37 in the HG group.The diagnostic rate of gastroscopy was 34.8% at primary diagnosis and 50% including differential diagnoses.The positive rates of Hpyloriwere similar between the 2 groups (68% vs77%).Multiple lesions were found in 19.3%.The proportion of mucosal and submucosal lesions was 80.0%(16/20) in the LG group,and 24.3%(9/37) in the HG group (P<0.001).Lymph node invasion rates were 10.5%(2/19) in the LG group and 44.1%(15/34) in the HG group (P=0.031).The numbers of recurred patients were none in the LG group,and 8 in the HG group.By univariant analysis,group (P=0.024) and TNM stage (stage Ⅰ,Ⅱ vs stages Ⅲ,Ⅳ,P=0.002) were found to be the significant risk factors.There was a tendency of higher recurrence rate in the subtotal gastrectomy group than in the total gastrectomy group (P=0.50). CONCLUSION:The HG groups had a more advanced stage and a higher recurrence rate than the LG group.Although there was no difference between subtotal and total gastrectomies,more careful assessments of multiplicities and radical resections with lymph node dissections seem to be needed because of multiplicity and LN invasion even in LG group.