Gastric cancer in young patients under the age of 45 years old: A comparative study with older patients

Abstract

and 33.3%; p ¼ 0.9). 23.4% of patients received second line treatment. The two most commonly used regimens were FOLFIRI (36.4%) and Capecitabine (27.3%). FOLFIRI seemed to be more effective than Capecitabine (respectively 66.7% of progression vs 100%, p ¼ 0.5). Only 4.3% of patients received a third line chemotherapy based on capecitabine or FOLFIRI. All patients progressed. The median number of received chemotherapy cycles was 4. 41.9% of our patients developed grade 3-4 toxicity during chemotherapy. There was no treatment-related death. Median overall survival (OS) and progression free survival (PFS) were respectively 6 and 5 months. On univariate analysis, factors associated with poor OS were elevated tumor markers (p ¼ 0.001), hepatic metastases (p ¼ 0.003) and radiologic progression after first line treatment (p ¼ 0.03). Those related with a better survival were receiving first (p<0.001) and second line chemotherapy (p ¼ 0.01) and having a surgery (p ¼ 0.01) even with a palliative intent (p ¼ 0.04). Multivariate analysis demonstrated that the only independent factor positively impacting on survival was receiving chemotherapy (p ¼ 0.01). Conclusion: Metastatic spread of gastric cancer is fatal. This study confirms the survival benefit and manageable toxicity of palliative chemotherapy but survival increase remains poor compared to improvements in other gastrointestinal cancers.

Clinical characteristics and comparison of the outcome in young versus older patients with upper gastrointestinal carcinoma

“…In the frame of this study, we investigated patients whose age was under 45 years at the initial onset of a GET including oesophagus, gastroesophageal junction and stomach. This age limit was chosen according to current literature (Braga-Neto et al 2018 ; Karrit et al 2018 ; Yang et al 2011 ).…”