Object: The risk of lymph node positivity (LN+) in gastric cancer (GC) impacts therapeutic recommendations. The aim of this study was to quantify the effect of younger age on LN+. Methods: Data from a Chinese multi-institutional database and the US SEER database on stage I to III resected GC were analyzed for the relationship between age and LN+ status. The association of age and LN+ status was examined with logistic regression separately for each T stage, adjusting for multiple covariates. Poisson regression was used to evaluate age and number of LN+. Results: 4,905 and 14,877 patients were identified in the China and SEER datasets respectively. 479 (9.8%) patients were under age 40 years, with 768 (15.7%) between age 40 and 49 years in China dataset, and 416 (2.8%) patients were under age 40 years, with 1176 (7.9%) between age 40 and 49 years in SEER dataset. Both datasets exhibited significantly proportional decreases of N3a and N3b LN+ with age increasing. Patients younger than age 40 years were more likely to show LN+ compared with the reference age 60 to 69 years. The youngest patients had the highest ORs of N1, N2, N3a, and N3b vs N0 LN+ within T4 stage of China dataset and T3 stage of SEER dataset, the values of ORs decreased with increasing age. Young age was a predictor of an increased number of LNs positive for each T stage. Conclusion: In the two large datasets, young age at diagnosis is associated with an increased risk of LN+.
Keywords: age; gastric cancer; lymph node positivity.
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