A new concept for stage grouping of gastric cancer according to dynamic stage migration with time: a survival-period perspective
Moriwaki, Y.; Sugiyama, M.
International Surgery 95(4): 281-286
2010
ISSN/ISBN: 0020-8868 PMID: 21309407 Document Number: 644523
The aim of this study was to clarify the mechanism of "dynamic stage migration with time". Nine hundred thirty-nine patients with gastric cancer were evaluated in the study. Patients who survived for more than 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 years after the initial operation were selected. The 6-, 7-, 8-, 9-, and 10-year survival rates from the time of surgery were evaluated for every tumor depth (t)/nodular status (n) group in every stage. The longer the patients survived after the initial operation, the closer the next 5 year survival of patients in the t2n0 group came to that of patients in the t1n0 group; the closer that of t2n1 patients came to that of t1n1; and the closer those of t3n2, t2n2, t2n3, and t3n1 patients came to that of t3n0 patients. A stage grouping at some years after the initial operation is expected to differ from that estimated just after surgery because of the heterogeneity of the disease.