Prognostic impact of lesser curvature lymph node count in stage I/II gastric cancer: A retrospective study

Figure 1 Flow chart of patient selection process. TNM: Tumor-node-metastasis; LN: Lymph node.

Figure 2 Determination of the optimal cutoff for lesser curvature lymph node count and its prognostic validation. A: Systematic evaluation of survival differences across candidate cutoff values (5-14 retrieved lymph nodes). The primary Y-axis (left) represents the statistical significance of the log-rank test expressed as -log₁₀(P-value). Higher values on the -log₁₀(P-value) scale correspond to greater statistical significance. The secondary Y-axis (right) shows the corresponding hazard ratio and 95% confidence interval derived from univariate Cox regression analysis for each cutoff; B: Kaplan-Meier overall survival curves for the entire cohort stratified by the optimal cutoff (≤ 7 vs > 7 retrieved lesser curvature lymph nodes).

Figure 3 Kaplan-Meier survival analysis of clinicopathological factors. A: Stratified by pathological stage (stage I vs stage II); B: Stratified by depth of tumor invasion (T1/T2 vs T3); C: Stratified by lymph node status (N0 vs N+); D: Stratified by age (< 65 years vs ≥ 65 years); E: Stratified by lymphovascular invasion status (negative vs positive); F: Stratified by perineural invasion status (negative vs positive).

Figure 4 Validation of the 7-lymph-node cutoff in subgroups. A-C: Systematic evaluation of candidate cutoffs (5-14 nodes) in the N0 (A), N+ (B), and T3 (C) subgroups. The red highlight indicates that 7 lymph nodes was the threshold with the greatest hazard ratio among significant cutoffs (log-rank P < 0.05) in each subgroup; D-F: Corresponding Kaplan-Meier survival curves stratified by the 7-node cutoff (≤ 7 vs > 7) within the same N0 (D), N+ (E), and T3 (F) subgroups.

Figure 5 Analysis of the T1/T2 subgroup and prognostic validation for the lymph node count cutoff. A: Threshold-searching analysis evaluating cutoffs from 5 to 14 retrieved lymph nodes. No cutoff yielded a statistically significant survival difference (all log-rank P ≥ 0.05); B: Kaplan-Meier survival curve for the T1/T2 subgroup stratified by the 7-node cutoff (≤ 7 vs > 7), demonstrating no significant prognostic stratification.