Long-term prognostic impact of circulating tumour cells in gastric cancer patients

Table 1 Patient characteristics and clinical findings

Variable		Number of patients
Sex	Male	46
	Female	19
Age (yr; mean, range)		58.8; 33-76
Gastrectomy	Distal	29
	Total	32
	None	4
Surgical curability	R0	57
	R1	0
	R2	8
Clinical course	Survival without relapse	47
	Survival after relapse	2
	Survival after non-curative surgery	1
	Decease	15
Recurrence site (including overlap)	None	47
	Remnant stomach	1
	Hematogenous	5
	Lymphatic	4
	Peritoneal dissemination	5
	Non-curative surgery	8
Postoperative chemotherapy	None	37
	Adjuvant chemotherapy	11
	Adjuvant and therapeutic chemotherapy	9
	Therapeutic chemotherapy after non-curative surgery	8
TNM stage	I	40
	II	6
	III	10
	IV	9
Depth of tumour invasion	T1	36
	T2	8
	T3	9
	T4	12
Lymph node metastasis	N0	39
	N1	5
	N2	6
	N3	15
Distant metastasis	M0	56
	M1	9
Main histological type	Differentiated	25
	Undifferentiated	40
Lymphatic invasion	L0	35
	L1	26
	LX	4
Venous invasion	V0	35
	V1-2	26
	VX	4

Table 2 Risk factors for prognosis of patients (n = 65)

Variable	Univariate analysis			Multivariate analysis
	Hazard ratio	95%CI	P value	Hazard ratio	95%CI	P value
Number of high telomerase activity cells
≤ 5	1.0			1.0
> 5	2.069	0.693-5.744	0.183	0.900	0.294-2.591	0.847
fStage
fStage I	1.0			1.0
fStage II	7.097	0.281-179.3	0.196	7.106	0.281-179.6	0.182
fStage III	25.18	4.053-482.6	0.0003b	26.17	4.017-510.6	0.0004b
fStage IV	83.57	14.86-1567	< 0.0001b	85.76	14.91-1623	< 0.0001b

^bP < 0.01.

Table 3 Risk factors for relapse of patients who underwent curative surgery (n = 57)

Variable	Univariate analysis			Multivariate analysis
	Hazard ratio	95%CI	P value	Hazard ratio	95%CI	P value
Number of high telomerase activity cells
≤ 5	1.0			1.0
> 5	3.566	0.988-12.88	0.052	1.971	0.471-8.861	0.350
fStage
fStage I	1.0			1.0
fStage II	3.635	0.169-37.96	0.337	3.576	0.166-37.35	0.343
fStage III	17.78	4.065-121.8	0.0001b	13.75	2.806-100.7	0.001b
fStage IV	239.6	7.943-7785	0.005b	289.4	9.331-9733	0.004b

^bP < 0.01.