Analysis of Prognostic Factors of Esophageal and Gastric Cardiac Carcinoma Patients after Radical Surgery Using Cox Proportional Hazard Model-A Random Sampling Study from the Fourth Hospital of Hebei Medical University during the Period of 1996-2004

OBJECTIVE To retrospectively analyze clinical data of patients from our hospital who underwent radical surgery for esophageal carcinoma and for adenocarcinoma of the gastric cardia, as well as to investigate prognostic factors affecting the long-term survival of the patients. METHODS Data from the patients eligible for our study, admitted to the 4th Hospital of Hebei Medical University from January 1996 to December 2004, were randomized, and 12 distinctive clinicopathologic factors influencing the survival rate of those who underwent radical surgery for esophageal carcinoma or carcinoma of the gastric cardia were collected. Univariate and multivariate analysis of these individual variables were performed using the Cox proportional hazard model. RESULTS It was shown by univariate analysis that age, tumor size, pathologic type, lymph node status, TNM staging, depth of infi ltration and encroachment into local organs, etc., were the factors that markedly influenced the prognosis of patients ( P < 0.01). Multivariate analysis showed that pathologic type, number of the lymph node metastases, involvement of local organs, and TNM staging were independent prognostic factors ( P < 0.05). CONCLUSION The independent factors influencing the prognosis of patients with esophageal cancer and carcinoma of the gastric cardia include pathologic type, number of lymph node metastases, involvement of local organs and TNM staging. The main prognostic factors aff ecting the patient’s survival are patient age, tumor size and depth of in fi ltration. In addition, patients with involvement of the local organs have a worse prognosis, and they should be closely followed up