Long-term Outcomes of Gastric Cancer in a Small Institute: a Single Surgeon Experience

The aim of our study was to analyze the short-term and long-term outcomes of gastric cancer patients who underwent surgical treatment in a small, single institute by one surgeon. We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of 950 patients who underwent surgical treatment for gastric cancer between January 2000 and January 2010 at Dong-rae Paik Hospital, Inje University College of Medicine, Busan, Republic of Korea. A total of 820 patients were included and analyzed. We divided the time period into 2 groups: 2000-2005 (period 1) and 2006-2010 (period 2). Since all of the surgeries were performed by a single surgeon, we were able to analyze the effect of increasing individual surgeon experience. The mean follow-up period was 78.26 months. The 5-year overall survival and relapse-free survival rates of all of the patients were 84.6% and 86.5%, respectively; the postoperative morbidity and mortality rates were 12% and 0.36%, respectively. The relapse-free survival rate was higher in period 2 than in period 1 (82.9% vs 90.2%, p = 0.002). The results of gastric cancer surgery between a small institute and the large institutes were comparable. The increased proportion of early gastric cancer and individual surgeon experience was associated with the improvement in the long-term oncologic outcomes of gastric cancer treatment.