Copyright: ©Author(s) 2026. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license. No commercial re-use. See permissions. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc.
World J Gastroenterol. Nov 28, 2026; 32(44): 120795
Published online Nov 28, 2026. doi: 10.3748/wjg.120795
Published online Nov 28, 2026. doi: 10.3748/wjg.120795
Clinicopathological characteristics and survival outcomes of early-onset vs mid-aged gastric cancer using an evidence-based age cutoff
Seong-A Jeong, Division of Gastrointestinal Surgery, Department of Surgery, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul 05505, South Korea
Seong-A Jeong, Ji Hoon Kim, Department of Surgery, Gangneung Asan Hospital, Gangneung 25440, South Korea
Jung Bok Lee, Department of Biostatistics, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul 05505, Songpa-gu, South Korea
Author contributions: Jeong SA and Kim JH designed the research study, collected the data, and created the images; Jeong SA and Lee JB were involved in the formal analysis and interpretation of the results; Jeong SA wrote the original manuscript; Jeong SA, Kim JH, and Lee JB reviewed and edited the manuscript. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
AI contribution statement: The manuscript underwent formal English editing by a professional editing company (Editage). As a non-native English-speaking author, I used an AI tool to receive assistance with ensuring that some sentences were grammatically correct in English during the drafting process. All content and ideas, however, were generated solely by the author. After the main manuscript was fully drafted by the authors, the AI tool was used only to assist in drafting the Abstract based on the complete text.
Institutional review board statement: The present study, which analyzed both retrospective and prospective registry data, received separate Institutional Review Board approval (No. GNAH 2025-05-018).
Informed consent statement: All eligible patients provided written informed consent and were informed of their right to withdraw consent at any time.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Jeong SA has no conflict of interest relevant to this article. Lee JB has no conflict of interest relevant to this article. Kim JB has no conflict of interest relevant to this article.
Data sharing statement: All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article. The raw registry data can be provided to qualified researchers after deliberation and approval by the Data Review Committee of the Medical Research Institute at Gangneung Asan Hospital, confirming that there are no ethical concerns.
Corresponding author: Seong-A Jeong, MD, Division of Gastrointestinal Surgery, Department of Surgery, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, 88 Olympic-ro 43-gil, Songpa-gu, Seoul 05505, South Korea. sajeong90@gmail.com
Received: March 9, 2026
Revised: March 26, 2026
Accepted: April 10, 2026
Published online: November 28, 2026
Processing time: 206 Days and 12.6 Hours
Revised: March 26, 2026
Accepted: April 10, 2026
Published online: November 28, 2026
Processing time: 206 Days and 12.6 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: This study compares early-onset gastric cancer (EOGC) and mid-aged gastric cancer (M-GC) using an evidence-based age cutoff of 50 years and inverse probability of treatment weighting to minimize age-related confounders. Despite a higher pre