Prognostic effect of different etiologies in patients with gastric cardia cancer

There are still many controversies about the characteristics and prognosis of gastric cardia cancer. We aimed to evaluate the clinical characteristics and outcome between cardia and noncardia cancer. Also, we evaluated the clinical outcome according to etiologic factors.We performed a retrospective cohort study of 92 patients with gastric cardia cancer from January 2003 to December 2013. The patients with noncardia cancer were selected as age- and sex-matched control.The frequencies of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) and negative Helicobacter pylori infection without atrophy were significantly higher in gastric cardia cancers, but there was no difference in the frequency of obesity. The frequency of early gastric cancers was 40.0%, which was significantly lower than that of noncardia cancer. The rate of recurrence, disease-free survival, and overall survival duration were significantly lower in gastric cardia cancers (P < .01), even though there was no significant difference in the rate of curative resection (R0). In terms of the etiologic factors, there were no differences of disease prognosis, regardless of the presence of GERD, obesity, and H pylori infection with associated gastritis.Gastric cardia cancer showed distinct clinical characteristics and a negative prognostic impact compared with gastric noncardia cancer.