The 8th edition American Joint Committee on gastric cancer pathological staging classification performs well in a population with high proportion of locally advanced disease.

BACKGROUND: The 8th edition of AJCC gastric cancer pathological staging system (AJCC8) derived from the IGCA database needs an external validated in cohorts with higher proportion of advanced disease. PATIENTS AND METHODS: A total of 5386 gastric cancer patients treated at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital (CGMH) and Veteran General Hospital in Taipei (TVGH) were enrolled. Clinicopathological data of the IGCA series and the CGMH/TVGH cohort were compared. Cumulative survival curves of the CGMH/TVGH cohort as stratified by the AJCC7 and the AJCC8 were compared. Lymph node ratio (LNR) was analyzed in patients with N3b disease. RESULTS: Patients in the CGMH/TVGH cohort were older and had more advanced tumor stage (stage III, 49% versus 26%, p < 0.001) than those in the IGCA cohort. The median survival of stages IIIA, IIIB, and IIIC as defined by the AJCC 8 were 49, 27 and 15 months, respectively, with narrower 95% confidence intervals, in comparison with 62, 30 and 18 months, respectively, as defined by the AJCC7. The AJCC8 exhibited better homogeneity within stages and discriminatory ability between stages, compared to the AJCC7. Six hundred and four patients with N3b disease were stratified by LNR into three subgroups, and their median survival were 31, 17, and 11 months, respectively (p < 0.001). LNR further appeared as a powerful outcome predictor of N3b disease (HR, 3.1). CONCLUSION: The AJCC8 performs well in patients with high proportion of advanced gastric cancer. We recommend that LNR is a supplementary prognostic indicator for N3b disease.

Impact of comorbidities on the prognoses of trauma patients: Analysis of a hospital-based trauma registry database.

Here we conducted a retrospective analysis of hospital-based trauma registry database for evaluating the impacts of comorbidities on the prognosis for traumatized patients using Index of Coexistent Comorbidity Disease (ICED) scores. We analyzed the data of patients with blunt trauma who visited emergency department between January 1, 2011, and December 31, 2015 in Chang-Gung Memorial Hospital, Keelung branch, a single level I trauma center in the Northern Taiwan. All consecutive patients with blunt trauma who admitted to the intensive care unit or ordinary ward after initial managements in the emergency department were included. We measured the hospital mortality of blunt traumatized patients using alive discharge as a competing risk. To investigate conditional independence of mortality and ICED scores given Injury Severity Score (ISS), we used log-linear models for modeling independence structures. Overall, we included 4997 patients (median age [IQR], 59 years old (44-75 years); 55.3% male). The mortality rate of blunt traumatized patients was higher in the higher ICED scores group compared to lower ICED scores group (4.7% vs 1.8%, p < 0.001). Meanwhile, the higher ICED scores group were associated with older age, higher ISS, and longer hospital stay than lower ICED scores group. Higher ICED group had higher probability of transition-to-death and lower probability of transition-to-discharge under the competing risk model. In the multivariable analysis of transition-specific Cox models, higher ICED group were associated with higher risk for hospital mortality compared to lower ICED group (HR 1.60; [95% CI 1.04-2.47]; p = 0.032). Also, higher ICED group were associated with lower probability of transition-to-discharge (HR 0.79; [95%CI 0.73-0.86]; p < 0.001). Additionally, higher ICED scores accounted for hospital mortality among patients with ISS < 25. In conclusion, our study suggested that severity of comorbidity was associated with higher hospital mortality among traumatized patients, particularly lower ISS.