Clinicopathologic characteristics and prognostic of gastric cancer in young patients

AbstractObjectives: Gastric cancer (GC) in young patients is thought to exhibit a worse prognosis due to specific clinicopathologic characteristics and delayed diagnosis; however, the data are controversial. This study aimed to analyse the clinicopathologic characteristics and prognostic factors of GC in young patients and to determine whether GC is a different clinical entity in younger vs. older patients.Patients and methods: Clinical data of 3930 gastric cancer patients who underwent radical gastrectomy were retrospectively analysed and divided into two age groups. The younger group consisted of 342 cases of patients aged 40 years or younger at the time of surgery, and the older group included 3588 cases of patients older than 40 years. Clinicopathologic characteristics were compared using Pearson’s χ2 or Fisher's exact tests, and survival curves were constructed using the Kaplan–Meier method.Results: Clinicopathologic characteristics of the younger group exhibited a predominance of females (p < 0.001)...