Impact of Lymph Nodes Examined on Survival in ypN0 Gastric Cancer Patients: a Population-Based Study

• Published in: Journal of gastrointestinal surgery 2021-04, Vol.25 (4), p.919-925
• Main Authors: MingHua, Zhu, KeCheng, Zhang, ZhenYu, Chang, Lin, Chen, ChunXi, Wang, ZeLong, Yang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Age; Cancer therapies; Epidemiology; Gastrectomy; Gastric cancer; Gastroenterology; Gastrointestinal surgery; Histology; Humans; Lymph Nodes - pathology; Lymph Nodes - surgery; Lymphatic system; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Neoplasm Staging; Original Article; Population-based studies; Prognosis; SEER Program; Stomach Neoplasms - pathology; Stomach Neoplasms - surgery; Surgery; Surveillance; Tumors
• ISSN: 1091-255X; 1873-4626
• DOI: 10.1007/s11605-020-04579-6

Background Our aim was to evaluate the prognostic value of the number of lymph nodes examined (eLNs) on survival in ypN0 gastric cancer (GC) patients, and further to define the optimal number of lymph nodes needed to be examined during radical gastrectomy of ypN0 GC patients. Methods A total of 1127 ypN0 GC patients during 2004–2015 from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database were included. The number of eLNs cutoff points that determined the greatest actuarial survival difference was calculated by the X-tile program. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to assess the impact of eLNs on overall survival (OS). Results The optimal number of eLNs thresholds was determined to be 15 for ypN0 GC patients. Kaplan-Meier analysis revealed that ypN0 GC patients with ≥ 16 eLNs had a significantly better OS than those with ≤ 15 eLNs (5-year OS; 60.8 vs 45.4%, P