ABSTRACT
<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To investigate the factors affecting the long-term survival of patients with carcinoma of esophagus and gastric cardia after curative resection.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>The clinical data of 906 patients with carcinoma of esophagus and gastric cardia treated by radical resection in 1996 - 2004 were analyzed retrospectively. Twelve clinicopathological factors possibly influencing survival were encoded and assessed by Cox regression analysis.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The 1-, 3- and 5-year cumulative survival rates were 89.8%, 75.4% and 71.7%, respectively. The univariate analysis showed that age, length of tumor, pathological differentiation, number of metastatic lymph nodes, depth of invasion, involvement of adjacent organs and the TNM stage influenced the prognosis significantly (P < 0.01). However, multivariate analysis showed that pathologic differentiation, number of metastatic lymph nodes, involvement of adjacent organs and TNM stage were independent prognostic factors (P < 0.05).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>The independent prognostic factors of the patients with carcinoma of esophagus and gastric cardia are pathologic differentiation, TNM stage, number of metastatic lymph nodes, and involvement of adjacent organs. The other factors influencing survival are age, length of tumor and depth of invasion. Furthermore, invasion of adjacent organs suggests worse prognosis, and should be followed-up closely.</p>