Introduction: While gastric cancer shows an increased incidence in elderly patients, the rate of younger patients affected by this disease represents up to 15 %. Younger patients are frequently diagnosed with advanced tumor stages with a poor prognosis although literature data on this issue are controversial.
Patients and methods: 643 patients with primary gastric carcinoma were operated in our institution between March 1986 and December 2000. No neoadjuvant treatment was administered in these patients. We analysed the data of these patients retrospectively. A comparison of the results between patients younger than 40 years (n = 38, median age 37 years) and older than 70 years (n = 182, median age 75 years) was performed.
Results: The radical (R0-) resectability rate was rather high for both, younger (78.9 %) and elderly (76.9 %) patients. Postoperative morbidity was higher in elderly than in younger patients (32.9 % vs. 23.2 %; p < 0.05), as well as the postoperative mortality (7.7 % vs. 2.6 %; p < 0.05). Both younger and elderly patients showed advanced (II to IV) tumor stages (76.3 % vs. 73.3 %, n. s.). There was a significant difference between the rate of diffuse carcinomas in young and elderly patients (63.2 % vs. 22.5 %). The 5-years survival rate following R0-resection was significantly higher for younger patients (54.2 % vs. 32.9 %; p = 0.01), differences occurred only after the second postoperative year.
Conclusions: The resectability of gastric carcinoma is not related to the patients age. Due to comorbidity, postoperative morbidity may be increased in elderly patients. Although both younger and elderly patients show advanced tumor stages, diffuse carcinomas are more frequent in younger patients. The short-term prognosis is similar for both age groups, long-term results are better for younger patients. The different life expectancy should be considered when interpreting these results.