Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jan 14, 2015; 21(2): 571-577
Published online Jan 14, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i2.571
Clinicopathologic factors and molecular markers related to lymph node metastasis in early gastric cancer
Eun Hyo Jin, Dong Ho Lee, Sung-Ae Jung, Ki-Nam Shim, Ji Yeon Seo, Nayoung Kim, Cheol Min Shin, Hyuk Yoon, Hyun Chae Jung
Eun Hyo Jin, Ji Yeon Seo, Hyun Chae Jung, Department of Internal Medicine and Liver Research Institute, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul 110-744, South Korea
Dong Ho Lee, Nayoung Kim, Cheol Min Shin, Hyuk Yoon, Department of Internal Medicine, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, Gyeonggi-do 463-707, South Korea
Sung-Ae Jung, Ki-Nam Shim, Department of Internal Medicine, Ewha Womans University College of Medicine, Seoul 158-710, South Korea
Author contributions: Jin EH and Lee DH designed research; Jin EH, Seo JY, Jung HC performed research; Kim N and Shin CM contributed new reagents or analytic tools; Yoon H and Shim KN analyzed data; Jin EH wrote the paper.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Dong Ho Lee, MD, PhD, Professor, Department of Internal Medicine, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, 300 Gumi-dong, Bundang-gu, Seongnam, Gyeonggi-do 463-707, South Korea. dhljohn@snubh.org
Telephone: +82-31-7877006 Fax: +82-31-7874051
Received: May 21, 2014
Peer-review started: May 22, 2014
First decision: June 10, 2014
Revised: July 9, 2014
Accepted: July 25, 2014
Article in press: July 25, 2014
Published online: January 14, 2015
Abstract

AIM: To analyze predictive factors for lymph node metastasis in early gastric cancer.

METHODS: We analyzed 1104 patients with early gastric cancer (EGC) who underwent a gastrectomy with lymph-node dissection from May 2003 through July 2011. The clinicopathologic factors and molecular markers were assessed as predictors for lymph node metastasis. Molecular markers such as microsatellite instability, human mutL homolog 1, p53, epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) were included. The χ2 test and logistic regression analysis were used to determine clinicopathologic parameters.

RESULTS: Lymph node metastasis was observed in 104 (9.4%) of 1104 patients. Among 104 cases of lymph node positive patients, 24 patients (3.8%) were mucosal cancers and 80 patients (16.7%) were submucosal. According to histologic evaluation, the number of lymph node metastasis found was 4 (1.7%) for well differentiated tubular adenocarcinoma, 45 (11.3%) for moderately differentiated tubular adenocarcinoma, 36 (14.8%) for poorly differentiated tubular adenocarcinoma, and 19 (8.4%) for signet ring cell carcinoma. Of 690 EGC cases, 77 cases (11.2%) showed EGFR overexpression. HER2 overexpression was present in 110 cases (27.1%) of 406 EGC patients. With multivariate analysis, female gender (OR = 2.281, P = 0.009), presence of lymphovascular invasion (OR = 10.950, P < 0.0001), diameter (≥ 20 mm, OR = 3.173, P = 0.01), and EGFR overexpression (OR = 2.185, P = 0.044) were independent risk factors for lymph node involvement.

CONCLUSION: Female gender, tumor size, lymphovascular invasion and EGFR overexpression were predictive risk factors for lymph node metastasis in EGC.

Keywords: Receptor, Epidermal growth factor, Stomach neoplasms, Carcinoma, Neoplasm metastasis, Lymph node

Core tip: We analyzed the factors related lymph node metastasis in early gastric cancer. The factors were not only clinicopathologic finding but also molecular biomarkers. It is unique because of the first study about biomarker related with metastatic lymph node in early gastric cancer.