An epidemiological study of 50 consecutive cases of gastric cancer from a tertiary care hospital in West Bengal

Abstract

Stomach cancer is the second-most common cancer among men and third-most among females in Asia and worldwide. 1 The symptoms and sign of stomach cancer are often reported late when the disease is already in advanced stages and 5-year survival is less than 30% in developed countries and around 20% in developing countries. 2 Despite of large number of such patients being treated in, there is lack of sufficient publications on the epidemiology of gastric cancer from India. 3 Most of the reported studies on gastric cancer from India are case reports or case series and few are case-control studies and they often deal with few specific risk factors associated with gastric cancer without looking into the entire spectrum of the disease. 4 Hence there is an urgent need for more research is to understand the etiology, develop suitable screening test, to demarcate high-risk population ABSTRACT Background: Gastric cancer in India shows marked regional variation both in incidence and presentation. Highest incidence is seen in the north eastern states of India. Its also common in West Bengal. However data on various clinicopathological characteristics of our gastric cancer patients is limited. The aim of this study was to find out the epidemiological profile of gastric cancer patients attending a tertiary care government hospital in West Bengal. Methods: 50 cases of gastric cancer patients were included in the study. They were admitted from surgical OPD. Patient characteristics were obtained using pretested questionnaire. All relevant investigations like endoscopy, biopsy reports, HPE and operative notes were recorded. Results: Average age of the patients was 51.76 years. There were 41 males and 9 females (4.56:1). There were 35 Hindus and 15 Muslims (2.33:1). 56% of the patients came from rural areas while the rest (44%) resided in urban areas. Weight loss was the commonest symptom followed by dyspepsia and abdominal pain. Majority of them were smokers (76%). Antrum was the commonest site of involvement and most common type of lesion was ulceroproliferative type (50%). Most of the gastric cancers were poorly differentiated adenocarcinomas. Indeterminate type was the commonest histological subtype. 16% of patients deemed operable on preoperative workup had advanced unresectable cancers. Conclusions: Majority of the gastric cancer patients appear to be male and Hindu by religion, mostly with a rural background. The average age at diagnosis was 51 years. Commonest symptoms were weight loss and dyspepsia. A high percentage of the patients were smokers with a long duration of smoking. About half of the patients had poorly differentiated cancers and indeterminate histology. A significant number of cases presented late with advanced disease. There is a need for urgent screening protocol to identify patients at earlier stages of the disease.

Are taxane based regimens better than non-taxane fluoropyrimidine based regimens in advanced gastric cancer? Findings from an observational multicentre study, South India

“…The mean age of patients in our study was 53 years, similar to other Indian studies. 5,23,[32][33][34] In our study, two fold higher prevalence of AGC has been observed in male gender in accordance with other Indian and global findings. 1,35-,39 Studies have shown that distal stomach cancer is most prevalent in European and Asian countries and our study had similar findings: 58.5% with distal followed by 34.5% with proximal.…”

“…6,37,38,[40][41][42] Abdominal pain was the most common symptom similar to other studies in contrast to some studies reporting anorexia and weight loss to be the most common presenting symptom. 5,23,33,36,39,43 In recent Indian studies, ECF has been administered for an average of 5 cycles, EOX with a median of 8 cycles and Cape Ox with a median 6.5 cycles. 31,32,44 In our study, about 75% of patients received a minimum of 4 cycles of paclitaxel carboplatin consistent with other studies.…”

Polymorphisms in ADH1B and ALDH2 genes associated with the increased risk of gastric cancer in West Bengal, India

“…It is mostly asymptomatic or present only non-specific symptoms in its early stages [ 2 ]. However, different studies have shown that abdominal pain, vomiting, dysphagia, weight loss and malena are the most predominant symptoms of gastric carcinoma [ 32 , 33 ]. In our study, we found that weight loss was the commonest symptom followed by abdominal pain.…”