Prognostic Impact of Lymph Node Metastasis along the Left Gastric Artery in Gastric Cancer

Background/Aims: This present study investigated a prognostic impact; of the lymph nodes along left; gastric artery metastases in gastric cancer patients. Methodology: In this study we analyzed 189 patients with N1 and N2 (Japanese Classification for Gastric Cancer: JCGC) metastasis. The N2 patients were divided into two subgroups; patients with N1 + metastases along left gastric artery (No.7) (only No.7-positive N2), and the remaining N2 patients (Remaining N2). We compared the clinicopathological factors and prognoses among these patient groups. Results: Patients in the Only No.7-positive N2 subgroup showed a better survival curve than the Remaining N2 subgroup although the difference was not significant. In TNM-N1 (six or less), the survival curves of Only No.7-positive N2 were better than those of Remaining N2. However, the Only No.7-positive N2 and Remaining N2 subgroups both showed similar survival outcomes for TNM-N2 (seven or more). Conclusions: The prognostic impact of lymph node metastases along the left gastric artery was found to be rather close to JCGC N1 (pen-gastric nodes) than JCGC N2 in patients with gastric cancers, especially in cases in which the total number of positive lymph nodes was six or less.