Introduction. Gastric cancer is a frequent malignant tumour worldwide along with lung, colorectal, and breast carcinoma. It is characterised by male predominance and peaks at the age of 70 – 75 years. Gastric carcinoma is also an important cause of oncological mortality. Among the limited treatment options of this tumour, radical surgical intervention is the mainstay and can occasionally result in extended survival. Nevertheless, the 5-year survival of gastric cancer patients nowadays is still low, approaching only 22%, therefore more exact prognostic assessment of the surgically treated patients must be elaborated. Tumour volume has been evaluated in other solid neoplasms. However, the application of this parameter in gastric cancer is still unclear.
Aim of the study is to measure gastric cancer volume in the surgical material and to assess the results regarding pTN classification in order to develop basic estimates of tumour volume applicability.
Material and methods. The research was designed as a retrospective study including 88 consecutive potentially radically surgically treated gastric cancer cases. The tumour volume was calculated using the three-dimensional ellipsoid formula. The cases were divided into 5 classes by the obtained volume and characterised by pTN classification and grade. Descriptive statistical analysis was performed. To detect statistically significant differences, the 95% confidence interval was calculated by CIA software and the findings were further confirmed by the χ2 test. Any difference was considered significant, if p value was less than 0.05.
Results. The largest number of cases presented with the smallest tumour volume not exceeding 5 cm3, namely, 24 cases or 27.3% [95% confidence interval = 19.1 – 38.3]. The pT1 and pT2 carcinomas significantly more frequently were smaller than 5 cm3: 56.5% [36.8 – 74.4] in contrast with 15.4 % [8.6 – 26.1] among pT3 – pT4. There was also notable association between the tumour volume and presence of regional metastases (p < 0.001) as all pN0 tumours invariably were smaller than 10 cm3.
Conclusions. Smaller tumour volume was statistically significantly associated with a less extensive local spread by pT. The pN0 finding was limited to smaller carcinomas not exceeding the volume of 10 cm3. The association between the tumour volume and pTN parameters indirectly indicates the prognostic value.
