Predictive factors for lymph node metastasis in poorly differentiated early gastric cancer and their impact on the surgical strategy

Table 1 Distribution of metastatic lymph nodes

Lymph node station	Tumor location in the stomach
	Upper	Middle	Lower	Overall
Group 1 (N1)	1	3	25	29
No. 1, right paracardial nodes	1	1	0	2
No. 2, left paracardial nodes	0	0	0	0
No. 3, lesser curvature nodes	0	1	5	6
No. 4, great curvature nodes	0	1	5	6
No. 5, suprapyloric nodes	0	0	0	0
No. 6, infrapyloric nodes	0	0	15	15
Group 2 (N2)	0	3	12	15
No. 7, leftt gastric artery nodes	0	3	8	11
No. 8, common hepatic nodes	0	0	3	3
No. 9, celiac artery nodes	0	0	1	1

Table 2 Univariate analysis of potential risk characteristicsfor lymph node metastasis

Factor	Lymph node metastasis n (%)	P
Sex
Male (n = 60)	7 (11.7)	0.315
Female (n = 25)	5 (20)
Age (yr)
< 60 (n = 53)	9 (17.0)	0.329
≥ 60 (n = 32)	3 (9.4)
Family medical history
Positive (n = 6)	1 (16.7)	0.852
Negative (n = 79)	11 (13.9)
Number of tumors
Single (n = 82)	12 (14.6)	0.475
Multitude (n = 3)	0 (0)
Location
Upper (n = 5)	1 (20.0)	0.925
Middle (n = 14)	2 (14.3)
Lower (n = 66)	9 (13.6)
Tumor size in diameter
≤ 2 cm (n = 45)	2 (5.1)	0.007
> 2 cm (n = 40)	10 ( 21.7)
Macroscopic type
I (n = 2)	1 (50.0)	0.183
II (n = 70)	8 (11.4)
III (n = 13)	3 (23.1)
Depth of invasion
Mucosa (n = 44)	2 (4.5)	0.009
Submucosa (n = 41)	10 (24.4)
Lymphatic vessel involvement
Positive (n = 4)	3 (75.0)	< 0.001
Negative (n = 81)	9 (11.1)