Impact of proximal resection margin involvement on survival outcome in patients with proximal gastric cancer.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the risk factors for proximal resection margin involvement and its impact on survival outcome in patients with proximal gastric cancer. A total of 488 patients who underwent potentially curative resection for proximal gastric cancer were retrospectively reviewed. Clinicopathological characteristics and survival differences between patients with positive and negative resection margins were compared and prognostic factors were determined by Cox multivariate analysis. In this study, 7.6% (37/488) of patients with proximal gastric cancer had a positive proximal resection margin after postoperative histopathological examination. Positive resection margins were significantly associated with advanced tumour stage and more aggressive biological features including larger tumour size, serosal invasion and lymphovascular invasion. Serosal invasion (OR 4.543, 95% CI 2.201 to 9.380, p<0.001) and lymphovascular invasion (OR 2.279, 95% CI 1.129 to 4.600, p<0.05) were independent risk factors for positive proximal resection margins. In terms of survival outcome, positive resection margins had an adverse impact on the prognosis of patients with proximal gastric cancer (median DFS: 20.7 vs 30.2 months, p<0.001). The multivariate analysis indicated that positive resection margins (HR 1.494, 95% CI 1.042 to 2.142, p=0.029), T stage (T3-T4, HR 2.264, 95% CI 1.484 to 3.454, p<0.001) and N stage (N1-N2 stage, HR 1.696, 95% CI 1.279 to 2.248, p<0.001; N3 stage, HR 2.691, 95% CI 1.967 to 3.681, p<0.001) were independent prognostic factors for patients with proximal gastric cancer. Proximal resection margin involvement was an indicator of more aggressive tumours and an independent prognostic factor for patients with proximal gastric cancer. Aggressive efforts should be made to achieve a negative resection margin if gastric cancer was deemed to be potentially resectable.

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Competing interests: None declared.