Article
Peculiarities of Gastric Carcinomas in Patients under 50 Years of Age
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Published: | March 20, 2006 |
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Introduction: Primary gastric carcinomas more commonly appear in advanced age; the portion of younger patients with this (<50 years) is about 7%-15%. To discover possible clinical and pathologic peculiarities between the two groups, our clinic’s patients who were under 50 years of age were compared to patients who were over 50 (n=481).
Materials and Methods: The study’s time-frame spanned from 01/01/1994 to 12/31/2002. The younger-aged group (median age 44 years) was composed of 73 afflicted patients; the older-aged group (>50 years) was composed of 408 operated patients (median age 68 years).
Results: Younger patients reported symptoms preoperatively more often than older patients (99 % vs. 92 %, p > 0,05 %). The diffuse gastric carcinoma predominated the younger collective of patients (82 % vs. 49 %, p = 0.0001). In differentiating the tumor stages, there were minimal differences between the two groups (p> 0.05%). Postoperative complications in the sense of insufficient anastomoses was remarkably higher in older patients (5%) as compared to younger patients with 1% (p = 0,22559). There were remarkable differences in survival (5-year survival rate) in favor of the younger patients even after statistical age corrections were performed (54,1 % vs. 41,1 %; p = 0,0414).
Conclusion: In younger patients, the diffuse type predominates, which could point to differences in genesis. It is often only initially found in a late stage (IV) and is always associated with clinical symptoms.The treatment results in younger patients are more favorable than in the >50 group, not only in the view of the surgical complications, but also in lethality and 5-year survival. This is also true in consideration of the different life expectancies and gender differences