Publication:

The changing trends in epidemiological characteristics of gastric adenocarcinoma: a Tunisian center experience

Background Gastric adenocarcinoma is a frequent disease characterized by recent changing trends in epidemiological features, mainly in developed countries. The aim of our study is to describe any changing trends, mainly, in distal and proximal gastric adenocarcinomas rates and signet ring cells adenocarcinomas rate.

Methods This is a retrospective monocentric study of 169 consecutive cases of primary invasive gastric adenocarcinoma, covering a period of 20 years. We have divided these cases into 2 equal-period groups. The rates of proximal cancers (cardia cancers), distal cancers (non-cardia cancers) and signet ring cells adenocarcinomas had been compared. Other parameters have been studied and compared such as gender, age and surgery types.

Results There is a statistically significant difference between the 2 groups regarding the rates of signet ring cells adenocarcinoma. The cardia cancer rates and non-cardia cancer rates are not statistically different between the 2 groups (p=0.074). However, there is an increasing trend in cardia cancers rate (7.6% to 16.7%) and a decreasing in non-cardia cancers rate (92.4% to 83.3%). There is no difference in regards to age, sex and type of surgery.

Conclusions The database of our retrospective study regarding age & sex incidence, clinicopathological features and therapeutic outcome was comparable to other studies in various literatures.