Possibility of limited gastrectomy for early gastric cancer located in the upper third of the stomach, based on the distribution of sentinel node basins.

PURPOSE: Several recent studies have evaluated the feasibility of the sentinel node (SN) concept for gastric cancer. The aim of our study was to investigate limited gastrectomy with SN basin dissection in SN navigation surgery (SNNS) for patients with early-gastric cancer located in the upper-third of the stomach. METHODS: 147 patients received SNNS for early-gastric cancer at our institution. Of these, 26 patients diagnosed with early-gastric cancer < 4 cm in size and located in the upper-third of the stomach were retrospectively analyzed for the distribution of SN and SN basins. RESULTS: In three of the 26 patients, lymph node metastasis was limited to the left gastric artery (LGA) basin. The breakdown of the basins were as follows: A single LGA basin, 19 cases; a non-single LGA basin, seven cases. A non-single LGA basin was significantly associated with the clinicopathological factors, such as tumor spread to the middle-third of the stomach, tumor location at the center of the greater curvature, and undifferentiated adenocarcinoma, compared to the single LGA basin group. CONCLUSIONS: Our data revealed that the distribution of the SN basins in early-gastric cancer measuring less than 4 cm in size and located in the upper-third of the stomach was significantly correlated with tumor spread, tumor location, and the pathological findings.

Survival outcomes after sentinel node navigation surgery for early gastric cancer.

AIM: This study evaluated the prognosis after sentinel node navigation surgery (SNNS) for early gastric cancer. METHODS: For 100 patients who underwent SNNS (between August 13, 2003 and December 17, 2018) at our hospital, the survival outcomes were investigated. RESULTS: (a) SN were detected with a diagnostic accuracy of 0.98. (b) Of seven patients who had positive SN metastasis, three underwent standard gastrectomy with D2 lymph node dissection. Among them, one patient died of recurrence (bone) and the other two patients were alive 4.5 and 14.7 years after surgery. The remaining four patients with positive SN who underwent diminished gastrectomy with lymphatic basin dissection at their request are alive 2.8, 6.0, 6.9 and 10.8 years after surgery without recurrence. (c) No patients who underwent diminished gastrectomy died of gastric cancer after surgery. (d) In the period following diminished gastrectomy, one patient underwent total gastrectomy and five patients underwent endoscopic submucosal dissection, and they survived for longer than 5 years. (e) As a result of SNNS, the gastric cancer-specific cumulative 5-year survival rate was 98.5%. CONCLUSIONS: Diminished gastrectomy during SNNS resulted in a satisfactory prognosis. However, regular follow-up after surgery is needed to detect secondary cancer of the remaining stomach.