ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: The incidence of gastric cardia cancer (GCC) patients has been increasing, while the survival trends of GCC patients over time remains unclear. Thus, the aim of our study was to determine the survival trends of GCC patients over time using a population-based data in the United States. METHODS: A total of 9044 surgically resected GCC patients during 1988 to 2015 from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database were identified. The survival probabilities were calculated by Kaplan-Meier method and the different survival probabilities between groups were examined by log-rank test. RESULTS: The median overall survival time was 27 (interquartile range, 12 to 99) months, and the median disease-specific survival time was 32 (interquartile range, 13 to 320) months for GCC patients. There was a statistically significant increase in median overall survival time (17 to 46 mo; P<0.001) and disease-specific survival time (19 to 67 mo; P<0.001) from 1988 to 1997 to 2008 to 2015. More GCC patients were diagnosed at an early stage in recent years. Meanwhile, adequate lymph nodes examined (eLNs) were obtained in more GCC patients during surgery. Also, the proportion of GCC patients who received chemoradiotherapy increased significantly. Moreover, early diagnosis, adequate eLNs, and chemoradiotherapy were associated with mortality. CONCLUSIONS: The survival rates of surgically resected GCC patients had a significant improvement from 1988 to 1997 to 2008 to 2015 in the United States, which might relate to the early discovery of GCC, greater utilization of adequate eLNs, and chemoradiotherapy.
