• Journal of Gastric Cancer
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.282-285
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• 2004

We report a case of advanced gastric cancer with Virchow's node and lung metastasis that responded remarkably to preoperative chemotherapy. A 47-year-old female patient was diagnosed as having incurable advanced gastric cancer with Virchow's node and multiple lung metastasis. Preoperative chemotherapy with Taxotere, CDDP and 5FU was carried out. After four courses of the regimen, the Virchow's node and the lung metastasis had disappeared, and a marked reduction of the gastric lesion was observed on the CT scan. Consequently, the patient underwent a total gastrectomy with D2 lymph node dissection. On histopathological examination, cancer cells were found to have infiltrated up to the muscle layer of the gastric wall, and 42 out of 60 resected lymph nodes were found to be metastatic. The patient received another two courses of chemotherapy after the operation. (J Korean Gastric Cancer Assoc 2004;4:282-285)

• Journal of Gastric Cancer
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.141-147
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• 2008

Purpose: The aim of this study was to compare the short-term operative outcomes of laparoscopy-assisted total gastrectomy (LATG) with those of open total gastrectomy (OTG) for patients suffering with advanced upper gastric cancer. Materials and Methods: Of the 47 patients who underwent LATG with $D1+{\beta}$ or D2 lymphadenectomy from July 2004 to March 2008, 29 patients with pathologically proven advanced gastric cancer were compared with 35 patients who underwent conventional OTG during the same time period. The comparison was based on the clinicopathological characteristics, the surgical outcome, the follow-up survival and tumor recurrence. Results: The patients' age, gender and body mass index were similar between the two groups. However, there were statistically differences in tumor size ($9.2{\pm}3.9$ vs $6.1{\pm}3.6cm$, P=0.002) and the proximal resected margin ($2.1{\pm}2.0$ vs $3.6{\pm}2.1cm$ P=0.004). There was no significant difference in most of the peri- and post-operative courses such as the time to first flatus, the time to starting a solid diet and the length of the hospital stay, except for a longer operating time (289.0 vs. 361.3 minutes, P<0.001) in the LATG group. The complication rate was higher in the LATG group (13.8%) than that in the OTG group (5.7%). The mean overall survival and disease free survival times were 32 and 31 months, and 24 and 28 months, respectively, with an average 18.8 months follow-up duration. The main recurrent sites were peritoneum and lymph node in both groups. Conclusion: The early results of the current study suggest that LATG for AGC is technically feasible and it does not show any inferiorities of the postoperative outcomes as compared to those of conventional open total gastrectomy.

• Journal of Yeungnam Medical Science
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.105-116
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• 2003

Definitely, treatment for gastric cancer is primarily surgical. Detection in early stage of disease and complete surgical resection is the best way to cure gastric cancer. If surgery is planned, careful preoperative evaluation and corrections of physiologic and psychologic abnormalities are essential to reduce perioperative morbidity or mortality. Basic principle of gastrectomy for gastric cancer is an en bloc resection of tumor with adequate margins of normal tissue and with regional lymph nodes and omental tissues. To complete these principles, regional lymph nodes and all omental tissues should be removed altogether during performing various types of gastric resection. The lymph node dissection is one of the most effective procedures for gastric cancer to achieve curative resection. The basic types of gastric resection are distal subtotal gastrectomy and total gastrectomy according to the condition of primary lesions and the status of lymph node metastases. When the primary lesion is located near the esophagogastric junction, it is sometimes hard for a surgeon to select adequate surgical method. Postoperative quality of life in a patient has become a very important factor to be considered in every step of surgical therapy. With increasing incidence of early gastric cancer, a number of surgical trials for limited surgery or endoscopic procedures have been performed, but the long-term clinical results should be carefully analyzed to define the clinical relevance of these new techniques. For patients with disseminated gastric cancer, a palliative procedure can be performed to improve quality of life of patients and to avoid immediate death due to the cancer-related complications.

• Journal of Gastric Cancer
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.74-81
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• 2007

Purpose: Routine pancreatico-splenectomy with total gastrectomy should no longer be considered as the standard surgical procedure for gastric cancer because of the lack of proven surgical benefit for survival. The aim of this study is to evaluate the clinicopathologic factors and the survival of patients with locally advanced gastric cancer and they had undergone combined pancreatico-splenectomy with a curative intent. Material and Methods: We retrospectively reviewed a total of 118 patients who had undergone total gastrectomy with distal pancreatico-splenectomy from 1990 to 2001. The patients were divided into 2 groups: 90 patients who were free from cancer invasion (group I), and 28 patients with histologically proven cancer invasion into the pancreas (group II). The various clinicopathologic factors that were presumed to influence survival and the survival rates were analyzed. Results: The rate of pathological pancreatic invasion was 23.7%. The tumor stage, depth of invasion, pancreas invasion, lymph node metastasis, lymph node ratio, curability and the hepatic and peritoneal metastasis were statistically significance on univariate analysis. Among these factors, the tumor stage, lymph node ratio and curability were found to be independent prognostic factor on multivariate analysis. The 5-years survival rates were 36.2% for group I and 13.9% for group II. The morbidity rate was 22.1%, and this included pancreatic fistula (5.1%), intra-abdominal abscess (4.2%) and bleeding (4.2%). The overall mortality rate was 0.8%. Conclusion: Combined distal pancreatico-splenectomy with total gastrectomy with a curative intent was selectively indicated for those patients with visible tumor invasion to the pancreas, a difficult complete lymph node dissection around the distal pancreas and spleen, and no evidence of liver metastasis or peritoneal dissemination.

• Journal of Gastric Cancer
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.89-94
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• 2005

Purpose: Early gastric cancer (EGC) has an excellent prognosis compared to advanced gastric cancer. The 5-year survival rate for EGC now exceeds $90\%$, and EGC is recognized as a curable malignancy. The important prognostic factor in EGC is the status of lymph-node metastasis. Despite conserving surgery being suggested for EGC at present, it is of vital importance to select a surgical method appropriate to each individual case. This retrospective study was undertaken to clarify clinicopathologic features and factors related to lymph-node metastasis in submucosal gastric cancer in order to determine an appropriate therapy. Materials and Methods: This study analyzed the clinicopathologic features for 279 patients with a submucosal gastric carcinoma (Group I) and compared with those of patients with mucosal (Group II) or muscularis proprial gastric carcinoma (Group III). All patients were operated on from 1981 to 1999 at Chonnam University Hospital. There were no statistically significant differences among the groups with respect to age, gender, tumor location, hepatic metastasis, or peritoneal dissemination. Results: Positive lymph node metastasis was found in 47 ($16.8\%$) of the 279 patients with a submucosal gastric carcinoma. The incidence of lymph-node metastasis was significantly higher in patients with a submucosal gastric carcinoma than in patients with a mucosal gastric carcinoma ($16.8\%\;vs.\;3.9\%\;$; P<0.01). Therefore, depth of invasion was a significant factor affecting in lymph-node metastasis. The 5-year survival rates were $88.6\%$ for patients in Group I, $95.2\%$ for patients in Group II, and $72.7\%$ for patients in Group III (P<0.01 for Group I vs. Group II; Group I vs. Group III). In patients with a submucosal gastric carcinoma, the survival rate with positive lymph nodes was significantly poorer than that of patients without lymph-node metastasis ($87.3\%\;vs.\;94.2\%$; P<0.01). Conclusion: Gastrectomy with D2 lymph node dissection is an appropriate operative procedure for patients with a submucosal gastric carcinoma.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.42 no.5
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• pp.649-652
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• 2009

A 75-year-old man presented with worsening dyspnea and intermittent dysphagia of one month's duration. A plain chest X-ray showed severe tracheal indentation by the right superior mediastinal mass. A chest CT established the diagnosis of a saccular aneurysm arising from the right proximal subclavian artery. Resection of the aneurysm and arterial revascularization was done through a median sternotomy with supraclavicular extension. Aneurysm wall and thrombus culture results were negative and pathology showed an atherosclerotic aneurysm. After the operation, dyspnea and dysphagia were reduced, but he died of advanced stomach cancer 8 months later.

• Journal of Gastric Cancer
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.47-51
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• 2006

The origin of a submucosal tumor is difficult to determine by endoscopic biopsy. One type of submucosal tumor, which originates in Schwann cell, a schwannoma represents 0.2% of all gastric tumors. We experienced the case of a 57-year-old female patient with a gastric schwannoma presenting with melena and anemia. Computed tomography and upper gastrointestinal endoscopy showed a protruded huge mass from 3 cm below the cardia to angle. Seven endoscopic biopsies indicated only necrotic debri and granulation tissue, chronic gastritis. Because we suspected an advanced gastric cancer, or lymphoma with bleeding, It was performed an operation for an exact diagnosis and a treatment for bleeding. A-post-operative histopathological, immunohistochemical examination led to the final diagnosis of a gastric schwannoma.

• Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.229-234
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• 2008

Purpose: A urea breath test (UBT) using C-14 or C-13 has been developed for identifying Helicobacter (H) pylori infection on the basis of urease production with release of labeled $CO_2$. We investigated if the C-14 and C-13 UBT have the difference to reflect the presence and degree of H. pylori infection detected by gastro-duodenoscopic biopsies (CBx) in the same patients. Materials and methods: Thirty eight patients (M:F = 28:10, age $53.4{\pm}13.0$ yrs) with upper gastrointestinal symptoms such as indigestion, gastric fullness or pain consecutively underwent C-14 UBT, GBx and C-13 UBT within one week before medications. For the C-14 UBT, a single breath sample was collected at 10 minutes after ingestion of C-14 urea (37 KBq) capsule and counting was done in a liquid scintillation counter for 1 minute, and the results were classified as positive (${\ge}$ 200 dpm), intermediate (50-199 dpm) or negative (50 dpm). For the C-13 UBT, the results were classified as positive (${\ge}2.5\%_{\circ}$) or negative ($<2.5\%_{\circ}$). The results of GBx with Giemsa stain were graded 0 (normal) to 4 (diffuse) according to the distribution of H. pylori by the Wyatt method. We compared C-14 UBT and C-13 UBT results with GBx grade as a gold standard. Results: The prevalence of H. pylori infection by GBx with Giemsa stain was 25/38 (65.8%). In the assessment of the presence of H. pylori infection, the C-14 UBT global performance yielded sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV) and accuracy of 92.0%, 92.3%, 95.8%, 91.7% and 92.1%, respectively. However, the C-13 UBT had sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV and accuracy of 96.0%, 84.6%, 92.3%, 91.7% and 92.1%, respectively. The more significant correlation in C-14 than C-13 UBT (r=0.948 vs r=0.819, p <0.001) was found between the value of UBT and the grade of distribution of H. pylori infection. Conclusion: We conclude that the diagnostic performance between C-14 and C-13 UBT to detect H. pylori infection is not significantly different, but the value of C-14 UBT more significantly reflects the degree of bacterial distribution.