Postoperative complications that can cause prolonged inflammation have an obvious impact not only on the OS but also on the DSM of patients with gastric cancer even if the tumor is resected curatively.

Objective: It is well known that both gastric and intestinal phenotypic cell markers are expressed in gastric carcinomas, irrespective of their histologic type. However, the clinicopathologic significance of these expressions has not yet been clarified. Methods: We analyzed the correlations among gastric and intestinal phenotypic marker expression patterns of the tumor, clinicopathologic findings and the patient’s outcome in 136 advanced gastric carcinomas. Results: Phenotypic marker expression was immunohistochemically evaluated using the monoclonal antibodies 45M1 (anti-human gastric mucin; HGM), CLH5 (anti-MUC6), Ccp58 (anti-MUC2) and 56C6 (anti-CD10). All tumors were classified as gastric (G), gastric and intestinal mixed (GI), intestinal (I) or unclassified (UC) phenotype. Of the 136 gastric carcinomas, 50 (36.8%), 56 (41.2%), 21 (15.4%) and 9 (6.6%) were classified as G, GI, I and UC phenotype, respectively. The G-phenotype tumors were associated with a higher rate of undifferentiated-type and infiltrative histology as compared with the I-phenotype tumors (p < 0.05 and p < 0.001, respectively). Furthermore, both univariate and multivariate analysis of survival revealed the G-phenotype tumor to be associated with a significantly poorer outcome than the I-phenotype tumor (p < 0.05). Conclusion: Our present results indicate that the gastric and intestinal phenotypic marker expression pattern of tumors, determined by the combination of HGM, MUC6, MUC2 and CD10 expression, is prognostically useful for patients with gastric carcinoma.

Neither NAC nor NACR for oesophageal carcinoma increases the risk of postoperative morbidity or perioperative mortality compared with surgery alone. There was no clear difference between NAC and NACR. Care should be taken with NACR in oesophageal SCC, where an increased risk of postoperative mortality and treatment-related mortality was apparent.

This study suggests that measurement of CTCs in gastrointestinal cancer patients could be useful as a tool for judging tumor stage, predicting the presence of peritoneal or pleural dissemination and patients' survival, and monitoring response to cancer therapy.

LPG-DFT is a better surgical procedure for treating upper-third EGC than LTG in terms of morbidity, postoperative hospital stay, and postoperative nutritional status.