Jung YJ, et al. - The researchers performed this study to investigate whether the cross-sectional location of gastric cancer influenced the long-term survival of patients as tumor invasion deepens. An association was found between the cross-sectional location of gastric cancer and long-term survival. A greater curvatures (GC) location foretold a worse prognosis, particularly in gastric cancer patients with deeper T stages.

• Patients who had been diagnosed with gastric cancer and who underwent gastrectomy from 1989 to 2012 were recruited.
• They classified the cross-sectional locations of the gastric cancers into 4 regions: the lesser (LC) and greater curvatures (GC), and anterior (AW) and posterior walls (PW).

• The researchers enrolled 4820 patients in this study.
• Among the 4 cross-sectional locations, the most common site of gastric cancer was the LC (46.4%), while the proportions of PW (19.9%), AW (18.4%), and GC (15.4%) were similar.
• According to the cross-sectional location, overall survival differed statistically (p = 0.013).
• The 5-year overall survival of those with tumors with a GC location was significantly worse (p = 0.003) than for the other three locations.
• At T stage 3–4b, GC location was an independent prognostic indicator for a worse clinical outcome (hazard ratio 1.365, 95% confidence interval 1.150–1.620, p < 0.001) in subgroup multivariate analysis.
• Moreover, compared with other locations, a GC gastric cancer had a higher recurrence rate in terms of peritoneal seeding.