Clinicopathological characteristics and prognosis of young esophageal cancer patients / 中华胃肠外科杂志

ABSTRACT

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To compare the clinicopathological features and prognosis of esophageal cancer between young and elderly patients.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Clinical data of 716 patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma undergoing curative operation from January 1990 to December 1998 at the Cancer Center of Sun Yat-sen University were analyzed retrospectively. Clinicopathological features and prognosis of 117 patients aged ≤45 years (young group) at diagnosis were compared with 599 patients aged >45 years (elderly group).</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>Except for tumor stage, there were no significant differences of clinicopathology between the young group and the elderly group (all P>0.05). There were more pathologic stage III cancer in the young group than the elderly group (47.9% vs. 33.6%, P=0.010). The 5-year survival rate (36.0% vs 33.8%) and 10-year survival rate (29.2% vs 25.0%) were not significantly different between the two groups (P=0.418). Multivariate analysis showed that the age was not the independent prognostic factors of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (P=0.160, RR=1.187, 95%CI0.935-1.506).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Young esophageal cancer patients have more advanced tumors than elderly patients. However, the survival is comparable to the elderly.</p>